UPDATED: GOP Wants More Cheese for their Big Mc(Connell) Ratwich

Say it's not true, Mitch – Go ahead, we wait with bated breath 

GOP Senate “Leader” or Plain Old Sourpuss

(Clear choice indeed)

This Update from the NY Times – a major part of the GOP healthcare “plan” or hell, let’s call it for it is

“Harsh, Cruel, and Affront to Low-income/Poor Americans that forces them to “pay more and get less” while this group makes out like bandits… for surely they are”

Seven of the biggest tax breaks in the “GOP plan,” published by this conservative group: Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) and reported on by the Fiscal Times:

1. Repeal of surtax on investment income, worth $222.8 billion over 10 years. This is the granddaddy of the Obamacare taxes directly aimed at wealthier Americans and investors. It created a new, 3.8 percent tax on investment income in households making at least $250,000 a year or for single people earning at least $200,000.

2. Repeal of health insurance tax, worth $130 billion over 10 years. This tax is directly levied on the health insurance industry and is collected annually by the Treasury and is divided among insurers based on the premiums they collect each year. While insurers have complained about the tax, they have largely passed it along to small businesses that provide health care to their employers and middle class families and others in the form of higher premiums.

3. Repeal the hike in Medicare payroll tax, worth $123 billion over 10 years. The Affordable Care Act imposes an additional 0.9 percent payroll tax on individuals making $200,000 or couples making more than $250,000. Repealing the law provides a significant tax break for upper-income Americans.

4. Repeal of excise tax on comprehensive health insurance plans, worth $32 billion over 10 years. The proposed 40 percent excise tax on employer-provided “Cadillac” health insurance plans was scheduled to take effect in 2020. The steep tax would target top-of-the-line health insurance plans exceeding$10,200 for individuals and $27,500 for families. The Kaiser Family Foundation projected that the Cadillac tax would hit 26 percent of employer provided plan beginning in 2020 and rise to 42 percent by 2028.

5. Repeal of the “black liquor” tax hike, worth $23.6 billion over 10 years. This is a tax increase on a type of bio-fuel that is the byproduct of wood pulp manufacturing. The tax break would benefit paper mills.

6. Repeal tax on medical device manufacturers, worth $20 billion over the next 10 years. The new 2.3 percent excise tax on all sales of medical devices was temporarily postponed and set to take effect in 2018. Manufacturers have strongly lobbied against the tax, saying it would be serious blow to businesses and consumers, although the tax does not apply to eyeglasses, contact lenses, hearing aids, wheel chairs or other medical devices the public generally buys at retail for individual use.

7. Repeal “medicine cabinet tax” on HSAs and FSAs, worth $6.7 billion over 10 years. Under Obamacare, the 20.2 million Americans with Health Savings Accounts and the 30 million or so covered by a Flexible Spending Account are no longer able to purchase over-the-counter medicines such as cold, cough and allergy medicine using these pre-tax account funds.

This is related and from Bloomberg:

No one seems to like the Senate health-care bill. Liberal wonks detest it. At least four Republican Senators claim they aren't prepared to support it, while other colleagues grumble about it.

The White House, whose chief executive promised he, one Donald J. Trump, would not cut Medicaid, as this bill does, now is balking as he usually does believing his warped mind that he didn’t say that all … it’s his M.O. or as I call it: “The Art of the Con.”

But the Senate bill is very similar to the bill passed last month by the House. And the reason for that similarity is pretty basic: Both bills accomplish what Republicans want.  

How ironic is that – a helluva lot I have to say and pitifully pathetic too boot.

This parting tidbit – get ready to read and weep: “Uncertainty Over Obama-care Drives Up Average Premiums 18% Next Year” Oh, BTW: Guess who caused and hoped and prayed and whipped up the frenzy about that so-called uncertainty? Yepper, the Goofy Old Pricks (AKA: The GOP) – oops.

Original Post From Here:

Topic for today: GOP Senate rules or lack thereof for their healthcare reform bill.

The GOP is going to change the rules and the country to reflect some sick form of “Trumpism” – just as this major change noted in Roll Call with this headline to the story seems to show:

GOP Might Buck Senate Rules to Pass Health Care Overhaul

“Parliamentarian decision still pending on House bill compliance with reconciliation”

The add this: Do facts matter – well, yes, as a matter of fact they do matter. And, more so for something as critically-important as healthcare as this from Snopes underscores about GOP BS on this topic.

Then sprinkle is this crap from Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) who is trying to pull a fast one on health care saying in part: “Our GOP bill, the AHCA, is just like the ACA and the process – but ours it better. The DEMS pulled this same process with the ACA.”

Ding – wrong Mitch – flat out ass wrong and you damn well know it. The ACA gave healthcare to over 20 million American and yes, some needed help and rightly so, we helped them – the AHCA takes away healthcare from those same 20 million... how in the hell can that be better?

The ACA was debated in three House committees and two Senate committees, and subject to hours of bipartisan debate that allowed for the introduction of amendments. No GOPers took the DEMS up on the process officer and did not support it and in fact zero voted for it while blasting it from the sidelines ever since. This “repeal and replace” AHCA bill will be introduced as a “reconciliation bill”, which by law must be related to budgetary policy. 

Note these three critical points are:

(1)  Created by the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, reconciliation allows for expedited consideration of certain tax, spending, and debt limit legislation. 

(2)  In the Senate, reconciliation bills aren’t subject to filibuster and the scope of amendments is limited, thus giving this process real advantages for enacting controversial budget and tax measures. 

(3) Under this law, debate on the bill would be limited to 20 hours, and the focus of any amendment introduced by democrats would, by legal requirement, be limited in scope; that means any Democratic alternative would not be in order and thus very limited.

So, the GOP wins on their longtime (7-year campaign promise) about repealing and replacing the ACA (“Obama-care”) and hating Mr. Obama along the way, too. But, as usual the public is about to lose on substance in the long run. 

B/L: The GOP worked very hard to destroy the ACA (Obama-care) and now they constantly continue to blame it for not working while bragging about some weak-ass campaign promise as the grand prize.

I look at the vast number in this GOP now in charge and see this — how about you?  

How pathetically sick and ironic is all that? So yeah, I guess, keep voting GOP and help them take us down while blaming everyone else. 

Thanks for stopping by as usual … now what’s next? Hopefully, the Senate will just say no... (wishful thinking, I know), but watch the wheeling and dealing by Mitch McConnell — it is expected to be intense and a huge free-for-all.