Bill Straub: Health care setback means McConnell might have to do the unthinkable — work with Dems

WASHINGTON – You gotta hand it to Senate Republican Leader Mitch “Root ‘n Branch’’ McConnell – he placed the few strands of honor that remain in his possession behind a health care reform measure that was so atrocious, so historically malevolent and so ugly that even the members of his own party couldn’t stomach it.

Faced with a mutiny from both the left and right, McConnell switched horses in midstream and declared that the preposterously titled “Better Care Reconciliation Act of 2017″ wouldn’t come up for a vote this week as originally scheduled. Instead he vowed to take another crack at this gem and see if he couldn’t develop a package that satisfies the various GOP factions.

In other words, it’s time to start buying people off.

Should that fail, a distinct possibility, which should establish just how godawful this mess he’s trying to pawn off really is, McConnell warned that he might just have to do the unthinkable – work with opposition Democrats on a compromise.

Land sakes, Mitch! Not in front of the women and children! Have you no decency sir?

Ol’ Root ‘n Branch, reputed to be a master legislative manipulator, has handled this measure like a fellow who plows his car into a crowd of people going 60 miles per hour and then high-tails it before anyone can get his license plate number.

He handed the job of developing this outrage to 13 old white men working behind closed doors without providing so much as a hint of what the bill contained. The details were finally sprung and a vote planned for a week later without a hearing and before the details could sink in.

McConnell’s reasoning soon became obvious – the Better Care Reconciliation Act of 2017 is a national embarrassment, a bunco, a swindle, a fraud, a sham-and-a-half. The only way to get it through the Senate was to sucker punch the public and the members of the Senate alike.

But the gambit failed and now ol’ Root ‘n Branch is the one picking his teeth up off the sidewalk.

So, how bad is it? Start with the Congressional Budget Office finding that 22 million Americans will lose their health care coverage over the next 10 years should this legislation pass. The CBO goes out of its way to note that many more will lose coverage beyond that time frame.

That alone should drive opposition. Consider it this way: Writing in the New England Journal of Medicine, three doctors looked into various studies and concluded that health care coverage afforded to 830 individuals per year results in the saving of one life. The article further maintains that a recent analysis of Medicaid’s mortality effects shows “one life saved for every 239 to 316 adults gaining coverage.’’

In other words, providing health insurance to the American people saves lives. By the same token, then, depriving individuals of coverage – say, pick a number out of the air…oh…22 million people – will cost lives, more than 200,000 over a 10-year period, if the Journal is to be believed.

By comparison, over the course of the Vietnam War, with the first American casualty coming in 1956 and the last in 1975, about 58,000 U.S. troops were killed in action.

Regardless of how you might figure it, a substantial number of individuals will die earlier than they otherwise might under the Better Care Reconciliation Act of 2017.

And it doesn’t end there. Cuts to Medicaid, according to the CBO, will hit $772 billion by 2026. Who does that hurt?

Well, 49 percent of all births, 30 percent of all adults with disabilities, 39 percent of all children and 64 percent of nursing home residents receive assistance under the national health insurance program for the poor and infirmed.

Republicans maintain that those who lose their Medicaid eligibility under the plan can gain coverage on the open market. Fat chance, said the CBO, noting that “the expense for premiums and the high deductibles” renders that highly unlikely.

Subsidies provided to those who couldn’t otherwise afford health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, will be slashed, increasing out-of-pocket expenses, and the subsidy will be made available to fewer individuals. Under the plan, people will pay more for worse insurance and an expanded waiver program will permit the states to offer fewer health care options.

There are other gross provisions – the bill eliminates funding for Planned Parenthood for a year, making life unduly hard on women, raises concerns about coverage for those with pre-existing conditions and comes down particularly hard on older Americans – but you get the picture, and it ain’t pretty.

McConnell, as is his wont in recent years, offered up a morally bankrupt piece of legislation and he did it for several reasons. The package cuts taxes imposed under Obamacare, with the biggest benefit falling to, you guessed it, the already wealthy.

About 45 percent of the benefits, according to an Urban Institute and Brookings Institution analysis, will fall to households making $875,000 or more per year. That group could realize an average rise in after-tax income of about 2 percent. Those residing within the lowest 20 percent of households may experience a 1 percent cut while middle-income Americans see only a 0.4 percent slice.

You may recall that ol’ Root ‘n Branch lost a major battle with then-President Barack Obama a few years back, resulting in a tax hike on those earning $250,000 per year and more. That loss has stuck in McConnell’s craw ever since. So offering a slimy tax-cut-for-the-rich bill masquerading as health care legislation provides our boy with a twofer – his rich pals recover some of the dough they lost under the Obama tax hike and he gets to further undermine his rival’s most significant legislative achievement – Obamacare.

Besides, the bill hurts no one important, only the poor, the infirmed, children and some poor slob holding down two low-paying jobs, neither of which provide health insurance. No one consequence.

It needs to be said – the Better Care Reconciliation Act of 2017 is unconscionable. No one with a soul should preside over an effort to deprive 22 million people of health insurance, an initiative that can only lead to death and squalor.

That doesn’t mean that changes in current law aren’t necessary. They certainly are, particularly in convincing more insurance firms to get involved in the exchanges where folks can pick and choose their coverage. But that can all be done within the current framework – a framework that has resulted in more than 20 million people who never had health insurance before obtaining coverage.

McConnell might still pluck this thing out of the fire over the next few weeks through his usual subterfuge, even though he can lose only two Republican votes in the 100-member Senate to assure passage. It’s a delicate operation, given that some moderates fear the measure goes too far while conservatives – like Sen. Rand Paul, R-Bowling Green — don’t believe it’s mean enough.

As for Mitch, this is just another leg on the journey that has taken him from moderate Republican to conservative to amoral hack to now reaching into that great, gray area known as immorality. He should be so proud.

Washington correspondent Bill Straub served 11 years as the Frankfort Bureau chief for The Kentucky Post. He also is the former White House/political correspondent for Scripps Howard News Service. A member of the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame, he currently resides in Silver Spring, Maryland, and writes frequently about the federal government and politics. Email him at williamgstraub@gmail.com.