AHCA Fails to Cover Pre-Existing Progressive Hysteria - The American Spectator | USA News and Politics
AHCA Fails to Cover Pre-Existing Progressive Hysteria
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The Republicans cruelly ignored a rapidly spreading epidemic as they crafted the partial repeal of Obamacare that passed in the House yesterday: They failed to include any provision in AHCA that provides mental health benefits for balmy liberals whose thin tether to sanity has been severed by the success of the GOP and President Trump. The latter’s victory in November and his successful collaboration with Senate Republicans on the confirmation of Neal Gorsuch for SCOTUS already had them gibbering. Their conditions have now been exacerbated by the passage of AHCA, yet it provides no subsidy to pay for their Seroquel.

And they are in need of anti-psychotic medication. Elizabeth Warren, whose multiple-personality disorder occasionally manifests itself in the form of a verbose U.S. senator and other times as a remarkably pale indigenous princess popularly known as Fauxcahontas, loosed the following war whoop on Twitter: “#AHCA will devastate Americans’ healthcare. Families will go bankrupt. People will die.” On the latter point, she may be onto something. Some of the outbursts our progressive friends are foolhardy enough to put in print (or bytes) are causing so much mirth in the Catron house that I may end up in the Emergency Room.

Take Christine Teigen (please), as Henny Youngman would have phrased it. She literally, and I mean “literally,” advised her Twitter followers that enduring President Trump will require additional medication: “tired of this manically insane, incompetent president and this dumpster fire administration i’m gonna have to go on another med.” No doubt Ms. Teigen’s use of all lowercase text is connected to her devotion to the poetry of e.e. cummings. Perhaps that sophisticated sensibility is why she feels the need to “have a tooth shaved down because of crippling anxiety.” What does that have to with the president? “I blame trump.”

But Teigen is, after all, a model. So, “thinking about stuff” really isn’t her primary skill. Let’s turn, then, to our elected representatives. They would presumably be able handle yesterday’s vote with more dignity. Connecticut is a beautiful state filled with sensible people, so Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) would naturally take a far more circumspect view, right? The vote provoked this tweet from Murphy: “House GOP, I hope you slept well last night … you will have the death of thousands on your conscience forever.” As Corporal Agarn from F Troop, played by the immortal Larry Storch, would have phrased it: “That makes sense!”

Murphy’s response did indeed make sense to a lot of Democrats, including Democratic National Committee chairman Tom Perez. The chairman, knowing what was coming yesterday, launched what former President Bush would have styled a preemptive strike on the bloodthirsty Republicans who went through such an arduous and often contentious process to honor their pledge to repeal Obamacare. A week ago, Perez and his fellow Democrats — in Congress and the legacy “news” media — gleefully mocked the Republicans for not being able to muster enough votes to pass AHCA. On Wednesday, the chairman’s tune suddenly changed:

Trump and Republicans will own every preventable death, every untreated illness, and every bankruptcy that American families will be forced to bear if this bill becomes law and millions lose access to affordable health care. The 24 million who would lose access to health care is not just a number — it represents fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers and even newborn babies with heart diseases or cancers that are too costly to treat without affordable insurance.

The 24 million is a made-up number, of course, as is the preposterous insinuation that Obamacare provides “affordable insurance.” But this is the chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Adherence to or even knowledge of facts is not part of his job:

Trump and Republicans are telling the parents of children with special needs that they’re on their own. They’re telling insurance companies to go ahead and use lifetime limits to decide when someone with a chronic illness has had enough health care.… It seems the only people who will truly benefit from this legislation are the uber-rich, who will pocket hundreds of billions in tax breaks. Trump and Republicans will be held accountable.

And what of the umpire of our political process, the Fourth Estate? It is just as dead as Obamacare. One of the oldest news outlets in the nation published this yesterday evening:

The health-care bill that the House of Representatives passed this afternoon … is an abomination. If there has been a piece of legislation in our lifetimes that boiled over with as much malice and indifference to human suffering, I can’t recall what it might have been.… It is no exaggeration to say that if it were to become law, this bill would kill significant numbers of Americans.

Yes, as it happens, it is an exaggeration. In fact, it’s hysterical nonsense. The person who wrote this has become utterly incapable of critical thinking. The left has always been wrong. Now it has gone crazy. The Democrats and their partners in the media and the entertainment industry have become a case study in mass hysteria. Perhaps AHCA should have included some provision for pre-existing hysteria. These people need sedatives and a long spell at a country retreat before they hurt themselves. They have already done considerable harm to us.

David Catron
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David Catron is a recovering health care consultant and frequent contributor to The American Spectator. You can follow him on Twitter at @Catronicus.
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