What’s the rush on repealing Obamacare? It’s true President Trump did promise speediness during the campaign. (“You’re going to end up with great health care for a fraction of the price and that’s gonna take place immediately after we go in. O.K.? Immediately. Fast. Quick.”) But that was before he discovered that health care was … “complicated.”
This sort of thinking will send us back to discussions about how our president has no permanent convictions on any subject except the inferiority of Arnold Schwarzenegger as a reality show host. Let’s move on. We have a national disaster to watch unrolling.
Under orders to do something immediatelyfastquick, the House has begun to race through what Republican leaders hope will be Obamacare repeal and replacement so swift their membership will hardly notice it’s happening.
“They just want to get it out and get it on,” grumbled Representative Frank Pallone of New Jersey, the leading Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which rejected a proposal to hold the bill until Congress got the requisite estimates on how much the whole thing would cost and how many people it would leave uncovered. Details shmetails.
“We can act now or we can keep fiddling around and squander this opportunity to repeal Obamacare, and begin a new chapter of freedom for the American people,” said Representative Kevin Brady of Texas, the chairman of another committee that’s pushing the bill through at lightning speed.
This offers us our annual opportunity to recall when Janis Joplin sang that freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.
The Republican replacement bill is very big on freedom.
There’s freedom for wealthier Americans not to pay taxes that help subsidize health insurance for their low-income fellow citizens. Freedom for those who can afford coverage to refuse to buy it. Freedom for insurance companies to hike their prices for middle-aged customers. Freedom for the states to stop providing Medicaid-backed health insurance for maternity care, when nearly half of all the births in the country are currently covered by Medicaid.
“It gives power back to the insurance companies to discriminate against women’s health care, which is more expensive, obviously,” said Senator Patty Murray of Washington.
Our new health and human services secretary, Tom Price, is very big on the freedom of doctor-patient relations. Price, a surgeon, talks constantly about keeping the government from stepping in the middle. (“You need to know that what your doctor is recommending for you is exactly what he or she believes is right for you based upon education and science, not based upon what Washington is telling them he or she must do.”)
Unless, of course, the doctor and patient are deciding whether or not she wants to terminate a pregnancy.
Price is a longtime opponent of abortion in all shapes and forms. He twice co-sponsored bills to establish that the Constitution protects the rights of zygotes from the moment of fertilization. That would ban not only abortion but also morning-after pills and, according to some advocates, birth control methods like IUDs.
He is also the person who could resolve any questions about a Trumpcare law, like that change in coverage for maternal health. “To what extent will he use regulation to try to even worsen the situation?” asked Representative Pallone in a phone interview.
The Obamacare repeal bill makes it much less attractive for insurance companies to cover abortions in their policies, and includes a ban on federal funds for Planned Parenthood. Lately, it seems as if everything the House of Representatives touches includes a ban on funds for Planned Parenthood. Someday soon you will learn that there was a Planned Parenthood amendment attached to a measure renaming a post office in Nebraska after a recently deceased World War II veteran.
You wouldn’t think getting rid of an organization that provides crucial services like breast exams, family planning and checks for cervical cancer would be a major fixture of a health bill. But this is an administration that wants to fight terrorism by defunding the Coast Guard to pay for a wall. What can I tell you?Planned Parenthood does not get federal funds for abortions, but it does get a lot of money for its other work with underserved poor and rural Americans. President Trump has let it be known that he’d support the organization if it just stopped providing abortions, period.
Planned Parenthood refused, under the theory that women need, um, the freedom to make that choice on their own.
So you’ve got two sides here, people. One believes all Americans should have the freedom to make their own decisions about their bodies. The other believes all Americans should have the freedom to not have health insurance. You pick. But do it fast.
<
GAIL COLLINS>
댓글 안에 당신의 성숙함도 담아 주세요.
'오늘의 한마디'는 기사에 대하여 자신의 생각을 말하고 남의 생각을 들으며 서로 다양한 의견을 나누는 공간입니다. 그러나 간혹 불건전한 내용을 올리시는 분들이 계셔서 건전한 인터넷문화 정착을 위해 아래와 같은 운영원칙을 적용합니다.
자체 모니터링을 통해 아래에 해당하는 내용이 포함된 댓글이 발견되면 예고없이 삭제 조치를 하겠습니다.
불건전한 댓글을 올리거나, 이름에 비속어 및 상대방의 불쾌감을 주는 단어를 사용, 유명인 또는 특정 일반인을 사칭하는 경우 이용에 대한 차단 제재를 받을 수 있습니다. 차단될 경우, 일주일간 댓글을 달수 없게 됩니다.
명예훼손, 개인정보 유출, 욕설 등 법률에 위반되는 댓글은 관계 법령에 의거 민형사상 처벌을 받을 수 있으니 이용에 주의를 부탁드립니다.
Close
x