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Thiranjala Weerasinghe sj.- One Island Two Nations
?????????????????????????????????????????????????Tuesday, July 18, 2017
Paul Krugman: Republicans Have Declared War on Truth Itself
Twenty-two million Americans stand to lose health insurance, and the GOP cries "fake news."
Accusing the media of being "fake news" has worked so well for the
Republicans, they've decided to give it a try against anyone who dares
question their atrocious policies. The GOP's latest target is the
Congressional Budget Office, simply because it has the gall to score the
latest disaster of a Senate health care bill.
Why, Paul Krugman asks
in his Monday column, should we trust the prognosis of the CBO over the
word of White House aides and congressional Republicans? For starters,
there's the White House's record of "constant, blatant lying about
health care that is, as far as I can tell, without precedent in modern
history."
Vice President Mike Pence tried to tell America that Ohio's Medicaid
expansion led to a reduction in aid for the disabled, which Ohio's own
state government had to announce was false. Similarly, Secretary of
Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price said on Fox News that the
Senate bill would cover more Americans than the current Affordable Care
Act. This was a particularly cynical lie, considering that, "You can’t
cut hundreds of billions from Medicaid and insurance subsidies and
expect coverage to grow!"
The CBO isn't the only nonpartisan organization to give a damning
assessment of the GOP's Better Care Reconciliation Act. "In fact,"
Krugman writes,
"just about every group with knowledge of the issue has reached similar
conclusions. In a joint letter, the two major insurance industry trade
groups blasted the Cruz provision as 'simply unworkable.' The American
Academy of Actuaries says basically the same thing. AARP has condemned
the bill, as has the American Medical Association."
The GOP has attempted to discredit the Congressional Budget Office
because it overestimated the number of people who would use the
Affordable Care Act's insurance exchanges, but that was only because
fewer employers dropped their coverage. Plus, Krugman continues,
"Overall gains in coverage have been reasonably well in line with what
the CBO projected—especially in states that expanded Medicaid and did
their best to make the law work."
You don't have to be a Nobel Prize-winning economist to know that
repealing Obamacare would be a disaster. Do we want to go back to pre-ACA Texas,
where 26 percent of the non-elderly population was uninsured? Do we
want a plague of junk insurance, with what Krugman describes as
"deductibles so large or coverage limitations so extensive as to be
effectively useless when needed?" Or a return to discrimination against
Americans with pre-existing conditions?
True, he admits, hardcore libertarians might be fine with that outcome,
but that's not what the GOP is arguing. Instead, "at every stage of this
political fight they have claimed to be doing exactly the opposite of
what they’re actually doing: covering more people, making health care
cheaper, protecting Americans with pre-existing conditions. We’re not
talking about run-of-the-mill spin here; we’re talking about black is
white, up is down, dishonesty so raw it’s practically surreal. This
isn’t just an assault on health care, it’s an assault on truth itself."
No one, not even Krugman, can predict whether this assault on truth will
be successful, or whether the cries of "fake news" will be as effective
against the CBO as they have been against the press. But the health
insurance of tens of millions hangs in the balance.
Read the entire column.