Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org (Home - Stephen Lendman)

Irresponsible Trumpcare couldn’t muster enough support for Senate passage.

What’s next is unclear. What’s needed is indisputable. Expecting anything positive from Congress is living in a fantasy world.

Bipartisan complicity against the general welfare is longstanding, serving privileged interests exclusively.

According to Americans for Tax Justice (ATJ), the nation’s eight largest insurance companies would get a $72 billion tax cut windfall over the next decade under Trumpcare. They’d get “nearly half of the $145 billion 10-year tax cut for the entire insurance industry (as) estimated by the Joint Committee on Taxation,” said ATJ.

According to ATJ’s executive director Frank Clemente, “(i)t’s appalling that Republicans in Congress would yank healthcare from 20 million people and give insurance companies a $72 billion tax cut.”

“Outrageous. President Trump promised not to cut Medicaid, and Republicans should keep that promise. We can’t afford any health care legislation that takes coverage away from Americans so that wealthy corporations can have a tax cut.”

Here’s the scorecard on what the top eight would get in billions of dollars out of the pockets of ordinary people:

United Health: $23,209

Anthem: $15,564

Humana: $11,001

Aetna: $10,876

Cigna: $4,094

Health Net: $2,771

Centene: $2,517

Molina: $2,113

This tax windfall would come largely from gutting Medicaid, along with millions of America’s most vulnerable losing access to coverage.

Instead of supporting single-payer healthcare, undemocratic Democrats want Obamacare preserved, the dysfunctional plan touched up with lipstick.

According to Dr. Don McCanne, their “position is essentially an endorsement of the unsatisfactory status quo.”

The increasingly unaffordable Affordable Care Act “is grossly inadequate and fundamentally not amenable to patches.”

Trump’s promise to deliver better, cheaper healthcare for all was smoke and mirrors deception. Healthcare justice for all is the only responsible solution both parties oppose.

Dozens of consumer advocacy and similar groups support a new Summer for Progress initiative. Its platform includes universal healthcare, free public college education, a living minimum wage, closing private prisons, ecosanity, and other progressive policies.

Their mission is noble if backed by sustained grassroots activism. Relying on undemocratic Democrats for support is foolhardy.

Both parties are two sides of the same coin, supporting privilege over beneficial social change. Obama was an apostle of force-fed austerity - a servant of Wall Street, war-profiteers and other corporate favorites.

Most Dems are the same. The 2016 DNC platform rejected universal healthcare, a $15 minimum wage indexed to inflation, ending Israel’s occupation of Palestine, along with endless imperial wars they endorse wholeheartedly.

Dems support destructive fracking, predatory trade bills, police state harshness, fantasy democracy, and other policies harming most Americans and countless millions abroad.

Neither right wing of Washington’s duopoly system backs governance of, by and for everyone equitably.

America is the enemy of humanity, not its ally. Undemocratic Dems and Republicans serve privileged interests and their own.

America’s deplorable system has been this way from inception. Ordinary people are on their own to sustain activism for responsible change. It’s impossible any other way.

-###-

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org (Home - Stephen Lendman)

My newest book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."

Virus-free. www.avg.com