TWiA Redux, Week 2

 A quick TWiA this week, to gauge interest in it continuing. Remember to follow us at @ThisWeekAmerica for on-the-spot news.

This Week in Health Care

In January, this is what soon-to-be-President Donald Trump promised, in an interview with the Washington Post:

“We’re going to have insurance for everybody,” Trump said. “There was a philosophy in some circles that if you can’t pay for it, you don’t get it. That’s not going to happen with us.” People covered under the law “can expect to have great health care. It will be in a much simplified form. Much less expensive and much better.”

That's not remotely what passed through the House this week, with the support of every Republican member except 20 (some of whom--like Andy Biggs, who represents the home district of TWiA World Headquarters--refused to vote for the bill because it was not sufficiently heartless) and precisely 0 Democrats. Also at WaPo, Philip Bump compares Trumps promises to the results.

Coverage of the House bill is everywhere, so we won't delve into it in detail. Suffice to say that Speaker Paul Ryan broke just about every promise he made about the way the GOP majority would operate when he took over. This bill did not go through its respective committees and get voted onto the floor. It was cobbled together like Frankenstein's monster out of bits and pieces of proposed legislation that had already died, and others that should never have been brought to life. It was rushed to a vote with 3 hours of debate, before the Congressional Budget Office could score it or most members could read it. Health care professionals, hospitals, insurance companies, and the American public all hate it. Ryan's calling it a victory, but his victory could come with scores of Americans dying because they can't get health care, personal bankruptcies skyrocketing because people seek health care they can't afford, and hospitals once again eating millions of dollars of care for which they won't be paid.

Say what you will about the Affordable Care Act. It was an imperfect bill that became an imperfect law--and was additionally hampered by the Supreme Court's decision that individual states could reject the Medicaid expansion, leaving their most vulnerable residents in the uncomfortable position of paying taxes that went toward the health care of people in other states but not for themselves. But the ACA dramatically cut the number of uninsured in this country, reduced personal bankruptcies, improved health results, and put insurance companies and hospitals on a sound financial footing.

The House's bill, by contrast, would, if enacted, increase the number of uninsured. It would lower some people's premiums by driving less affluent people out of the market altogether. It would bring back annual and lifetime caps and allow insurance companies to refuse to cover people with preexisting conditions. It would slash the Medicaid rolls. Americans would die, unnecessarily.

The House bill is the height of cruelty. Every member who voted for it--and those who didn't because it wasn't harsh enough--should be repealed and replaced in 2018.

This Week in Foreign Policy

Health Care dominated the headlines this week, but it's not the only trouble spot on the horizon. Over at Foreign Policy magazine, Harvard's Steven Walt wrote a devastating critique of Trump's foreign policy. He writes:

It follows that a realist approach in Asia calls for the United States to keep a wary eye on China and manage a sometimes delicate balancing coalition of Asian partners. This task is a tricky one that requires consistency, prudent judgment, and smart diplomacy, as well as credible military power. The latter quality is still abundant; the former, not so much.

Consider what Trump has done so far. He started out by taking an imprudent congratulatory phone call from the president of Taiwan and questioning the well-established “One China” policy, only to backtrack a few days later. He abandoned the Trans-Pacific Partnership on his third day in office, thereby destroying a key institution that would have bound a number of Asian countries more tightly to the United States and undermining local leaders who had spent political capital of their own in order to reach an agreement. He berated Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on a “get-acquainted” phone call, reinforcing growing Australian doubts about the merits of their long association with the United States.

There's more--on the Koreas, China, and the Philippines--but you should read it there. It's not long, but it's important, even if it has a low profile in the news this week. Walt's conclusion? "This unhappy situation may give people like me plenty to write about, but it isn’t good for the country and it sure as hell ain’t realism. Those who wish America ill could hardly ask for more."

This Week in the Census

In yet another undercovered story, why is the Trump administration sabotaging the 2020 census? As fivethirtyeight.com reports:

"Still, the bigger threat to the quality of census data could come next year. Trump’s preliminary 2018 budget would give $1.5 billion to the Census Bureau, effectively keeping spending flat in a year when, based on past 10-year cycles, it should be increasing by 60 percent or more. (Ahead of the 2000 census, funding lagged through the first seven years of the cycle, then jumped in 1998.) If Congress doesn’t decide to appropriate more money, the bureau could face a stark choice, said Phil Sparks, a former census official and co-director of the Census Project, an advocacy group. It could cut back the scope of the field test, increasing the risk of a failure in 2020 (imagine the census web site crashing as tens of millions of Americans try to log on to fill out their forms). It could make cuts to other programs, such as the annual American Community Survey, a key source of demographic and economic data. Or it could give up on shifting to an online census — a short-term savings that could end up costing $5 billion more over the full 10-year cycle, according to Commerce Department estimates."

This Week in Bears

One of our favorite bears has always been Smokey (who we used to visit in person --or in bear--in the National Zoo, decades ago). This weekend in Capitan, NM, home of the Smokey Bear Museum, Smokey's having a birthday celebration. Happy birthday, old pal!

Comments

[Marcy]

Happy Birthday, Smokey!