Congressional Republicans' First Legislative Achievement

At least it pissed off liberals

Congratulations to the Republicans in Congress!   They finally have a legislative achievement!  Not that they actually passed anything, you understand, but they have made a significant achievement without passing any legislation at all!   

Although their repeated efforts to strip 20 to 30 million people of their health insurance have failed, by putting all their energy into the attempt they have managed to avoid funding the Children's Health Insurance Plan (CHIP) program and thereby at least strip 9 million children of their health insurance.  Furthermore, Trump’s effort at sabotage of the exchanges continues apace.  Granted, he has not managed to crash them altogether, but give him time. Already neglect has managed to raise premiums by 30% in many states.  Any by shortening the enrollment period by half, cutting off all public announcement about it, and cutting off all federal attempts at enrollment, he should manage to significantly reduce the number of people enrolled.  Even if he only manages to cut enrollment in the exchanges by one million, that will raise the total number of uninsured by 10 million, and you will be halfway home in the first year of his administration.  Not bad, when you consider that it took Obama a full eight years to lower the number of uninsured by 20 million!  And if he does manage to crash the exchanges by the end of this term, then without passing any legislation whatever, you will have succeeded in stripping 19 million people of their health insurance, which is just one million short of the minimum goal.  Close enough for government work!

And if any Republicans object that they are not seeking to raise the number of uninsured, I can only answer that by their fruits ye shall know them.  Having universal health coverage has been a longstanding Democratic goal since Truman’s day.   Regardless of what form it has taken, Republicans have inevitably denounced it as an intolerable threat to liberty.  Ronald Reagan crusaded against Medicare as the end of all freedom.  Under the Clinton Administration, Republican strategist Bill Kristol warned Republicans not to agree to any form of universal coverage for fear of making is seem acceptable.  When Democrats finally got their opportunity under the Obama Administration, the moderate Republican Chuck Grassley made clear that Republicans would not vote for the proposal no matter what was in it.  Once Obamacare passed, Republicans made destroying this atrocity their top priority for seven years.  They filed suit to block it.  They voted countless times to repeal it, even though doing so would strip 20 million people of their health insurance.  They refused to set up exchanges.  They took down exchanges Democratic governors had set up.  They did their utmost to interfere with enrollment in the exchanges.  They rejected the Medicaid expansion.  They filed suit to prevent people in states with federally run exchanges from receiving subsidies.  And now that Republicans control all branches of the federal government, they have made repeated attempts to introduced repeal legislation that will strip 20 to 30 million people of their health insurance, while the Trump Administration does everything in its power to crash the exchanges and take insurance from at least 10 million.

After all this, only one conclusion is possible.  Republicans consider having a large uninsured population to be an important matter of moral principle.