Working-Class Whites watch: Day 51

It seems there are really only two people who enthusiastically support the Republican alternative to Obamacare: The Stain and Paul Ryan:

President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he was "proud to endorse" a plan to replace Obamacare backed by Republican leaders in Congress, and called for its quick passage even as opposition to the bill hardened among conservatives.

Obviously Democrats oppose this plan, but what do Democrats know, amirite?  What's important here is how the bill affects the rust belt, working-class white voters who are The Stain's most important constituency; the REAL Americans who fear God, country, and don't mind a lot of Russian meddling in our elections or our White House.  How do they make out under this wonderful new plan?

Um, not so well.  This should not come as a shock to anyone who's been paying attention for the past 9 years.

And let's not forget that the 'real' Americans, supposedly, are the ones who live in rural areas of the country, not the snobby elite cities and coastal areas.  How will those down-to-earth rural folks make out under this new plan?

The result of all these provisions would almost certainly be a system that benefits people who already have wealth and health and penalizes others, but there would also be very strong geographic effects. For one, pegging Medicaid spending to a base year would reduce states’ ability to ramp up health-care spending because of disasters or emerging health problems, and these problems already exert the most pressures on states and areas with infrastructure that is ill-equipped to combat them. Rural residents already rely much more heavily on public insurance than do city-dwellers, so any reductions of funding and funding flexibility will have a larger effect on the health issues they face.

Those health issues are serious, and contribute to much of the climbing mortality among middle and lower class white Americans today. The opioid epidemic is ravaging rural America, as are the creeping effects of environmental degradation and climate change. People like coal miners in Trump country in Kentucky and West Virginia are on the frontiers of several developing health crises, and per-capita spending caps on Medicaid would only further limit their states’ ability to respond.

Sounds pretty bad.  But take heart, rural working-class whites!  At least the folks making over $250,000 per year will get themselves a nice tax cut, which they will surely use to create more jobs!  That's what they always do with any extra money they have lying around, right?  So there's a silver lining for you!