Monday, July 31, 2017

On Capitalism and Petards


I thought Republicans and conservatives were all about Capitalism.

You know the free market exchange of ideas. The belief in competition and the public's ability to choose what was best. The forces of innovation, selection and one upmanship that have shaped our great nation.

I guess that's all lip service.
Particularly in light of the recent health care debacle.

Let's go through a facile, all-too-quick recap.

In 2010, after lengthy debates and many political maneuvers, even some underhanded ones, I'll admit, the Democrats passed the Affordable Care Act. The elephants in the room were not pleased. And pledged to upend it.

In fact they took 61 cracks at repealing the law through the courts and the system and failed each and every time. But while they were busy huddling with their lawyers to peel back this "abomination" they did nothing to come up with an abomination of their own.

NOTHING.

Precedent Shitgibbon promised a "beautiful healthcare plan that was going to cover everybody, lower premiums and be the envy of the modern world." Where was that beautiful plan? Did it get chewed up by the same dog that ate the 30 Day ISIS Defeat Plan? Or the Mexican promise to build a huge border Wall?

The truth is there was no plan.

And while the fat, fishbrained twatwaffle went to Mara Lago to drive his golf cart all over the greens, Paul Ryan and company scurried about to put something together like a junior high school student crafting a book report from the Cliff Notes.

Mitchy Mitch didn't like that book report. He thought he could do better. Not with a healthcare plan he started writing in 2010, but with three different book reports, written by a committee of the All White Pasty Fatman Senator Club.

And again, these were without any contributions from the dim, dread-bolted hugger-mugger who was too busy eating chocolate cake and scoring testosterone points with 40,000 Boy Scouts.

In the end, none of these options survived. Not because of some grand conspiracy. Not because of some Constitutional flaw. And not because of some miscreant remarks about "who is and who isn't a war hero."

The new plans had failed because none of them were better than the old plan, with all its flaws.

Had any off Mitch's options provided better care, lowered premiums and improved the lives of working Americans, they would have passed.

Easily.

In other words, the free market exchange of ideas that Republicans speak so highly of, prevailed.

In other other words, written by the Bard, the Republicans have been "hoisted by their own petard."

Damn, I love that expression.









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