We Need to Stop Republicans from Peeing on the Carpet

I'm a dog owner.  Your sympathy is appreciated.

Our younger dog (not that young; she's 4) pees on our downstairs carpet quite often.  We were told she was housebroken when we got her --- we were lied to --- but we crate-trained her, and eventually, over time, it seemed like she finally 'got it'.

Until, it turned out, she didn't.

So we've tried various things, and paid a dog trainer to help us out, and nevertheless, almost every night, while we're asleep upstairs, she pees on the downstairs carpet.  And it seems like no matter what we do to try to communicate her that we DON'T WANT her to pee on the carpet, she does it anyway.

I bring this up because Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), two theoretically 'moderate' Republican senators, have introduced yet another bill which would repeal Obamacare, take away health care from millions of underprivileged Americans, and throw the individual health care market into chaos:

The bill would usher a number of shocking cruelties into law, not least the possibility that as many as 32 million Americans could lose health coverage. That's 10 percent of the population. We don't know for sure because Republicans are trying to force the bill through the Senate before its effects can be assessed by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The bill is full of fun surprises, like the loophole it creates allowing insurers to deny people coverage for a series of basic medical treatments, including

• Pregnancy and maternity care
• Prescription drugs
• Mental health services
• Reproductive health services, including birth control
• Substance abuse treatment 

This bill appears to have the approval only of Republicans in Congress.  Just about everyone else has announced their opposition to it, including the National Association of Medicaid Directors, more than 75 different medical groups, hospitals, doctors, and even the insurance industry:

America’s Health Insurance Plans was even more pointed. The legislation could hurt patients by “further destabilizing the individual market” and could potentially allow “government-controlled single payer health care to grow,” said Marilyn B. Tavenner, the president and chief executive of the association. Without controls, some states could simply eliminate private insurance, she warned.

Sounds pretty good, huh?  So you have to ask yourself, why are Republicans so insistent on trying to pass this awful legislation that could do so much damage?

Because they can't stop peeing on the carpet, that's why.  This is their third attempt to repeal Obamacare, each more horrendous than the last.  They failed to pass the AHCA in April, because it was a terrible bill that would have eliminated health insurance for 24 million Americans and no one outside of Congress wanted it to pass.  Then a month later, the House DID pass the AHCA and Trump brought all of the congressional Republicans to the White House to celebrate over beer (I'm not kidding).

But the AHCA bill that passed the House could never pass the Senate, so the Senate tried to pass its own Obamacare repeal bill, called 'skinny repeal', which was even worse than the AHCA.  This bill famously failed to pass when John McCain (R-AZ) interrupted his treatment for brain cancer to fly to D.C. and give it a thumbs-down.

Which leads us to today and Cassidy-Graham, the worst Republican health care bill yet.

The reason I started all of this by talking about my dog is because the Republicans remind me of her.  No one wants their dog to pee on the carpet, just like no one wants any of these horrific Republican health-care bills.  And just like my dog, Republicans cannot be taught, coming back to pee on the carpet again and again, now matter how often or how forcefully the American people tell them to knock it off.

And I think it's fair to say that we've now come to the point where the only solution is to keep the Republicans off the carpet entirely.  Which is another way of saying, we need to keep these people out of Congress and away from the levers of power until they learn to stop peeing on the carpet.