The Insane Clown Car Posse (hat tip to my buddy Robb Fulks for that lovely turn of phrase) that’s currently at the helm of the ship of state here in the good old USA has started to give us a peek at their plans for US healthcare. The phrase “shit show” seems to have been invented just so it could be used to describe the excrescence that’s emerging, inch by fetid inch, under the banner of the AHCA, full title “American Health Care Act.” [Personally, I call it “the new National Eugenics Plan,” since the savings the legislation’s backers crow about are clearly gained from sick folks just dyin’ quicker.] Maybe we could tag it as GOTCHA, “Government Out To Cut Healthcare Access?” Asking for a friend. “Make America Sick Again!” seems to be the sales pitch here. After the gnashing of teeth, rending of garments, and fisticuffs that marked the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, the ACA haters – we’ll call them “the entire Republican Party, and all who sail in it” – spent the rest of Obama’s Presidency voting to repeal the law, while doing very little else. What the ACA, or “Obamacare,” accomplished was to finally put the theory of universal healthcare access on the table for Americans, who had spent the 20th century watching pretty much every other developed nation on the planet create either single payer (a la Britain’s NHS) or insurance-based universal access (in Germany and Switzerland) healthcare delivery systems for their folks. I say “theory of universal access” because, like all Congressionally-ground sausage, it’s a mix of top cuts of awesome (10 Essential Benefits! Tax Subsidies on Premiums!) with awful offal from the abattoir floor (too much power concentrated in the hands of AHIP, ridiculously narrow networks, uneven Medicaid expansion)….
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