Prickly City by Scott Stantis for March 06, 2020

Well since the haven’t got rid of Obamacare how can the replace it?

Republican (now the Party of Trump) health care plan?

Stantis, even you know there is no plan, never was a plan, and never was any intention to HAVE a plan or develop any plan or anything resembling a plan.

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Any plan would be, you know, SOCIALISM and would make us Venezuela.

Much better just to wait for the Russian oligarchy, which will solve our problems.

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#TraitorTrump

Just a reminder, folks: every time Trump says “we’ll protect people with pre-existing conditions,” he’s lying (the same way he is every time he opens his mouth). The only current law protecting people with pre-existing conditions from being charged higher and/or kicked off their insurance is Obamacare … which Trump and Republicans have been trying for years to undo and replace with nothing. Something to keep in mind this fall if you or someone in your family has pre-existing conditions.

They don’t WANT to replace it with anything. It’s just political rhetoric that they use to stoke people.

They have large contributors who are making a lot of money from the broken system, and that’s all that matters.

It doesn’t need to be replaced nor repealed. It can be improved by offering more choice and flexibility.

Everyone in America should be given the coronavirus so the economic impact of the outbreak will be lessened, CNBC on-air editor Rick Santelli suggested Thursday.

But what he left unsaid was that could result in more than 11 million Americans dead.

“ “I’m not a doctor . . . But maybe we’d be just better off if we gave it to everybody” ” — Rick Santelli

Santelli, who is widely credited with helping spark the Tea Party movement in 2009, made the comments during CNBC’s “The Exchange” in a conversation with anchor Kelly Evans, who asked him what the catalyst was for the recent chaos on Wall Street.

“The catalyst? Just watch your local news. There’s your catalyst,” Santelli said, according to a transcript.

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Of course, infecting the entire population at once would overwhelm hospitals and doom those who would have been saved by a future vaccine, or never caught it at all.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/cnbcs-rick-santelli-suggests-giving-everyone-coronavirus-to-spare-the-economy-2020-03-05

They never had a plan for the “replace” part — they just wanted all memory of Obama gone.

For the United States, the answers are especially worrying because the government has intentionally rendered itself incapable.

In 2018, the Trump administration fired the government’s entire pandemic response chain of command, including the White House management infrastructure. In numerous phone calls and emails with key agencies across the U.S. government, the only consistent response I encountered was distressed confusion.

If the United States still has a clear chain of command for pandemic response, the White House urgently needs to clarify what it is—not just for the public but for the government itself, which largely finds itself in the dark.

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Bureaucracy matters. Without it, there’s nothing to coherently manage an alphabet soup of agencies housed in departments ranging from Defense to Commerce, Homeland Security to Health and Human Services (HHS).

But that’s all gone now.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/31/coronavirus-china-trump-united-states-public-health-emergency-response/

“When in trouble, or in doubt; Run in circles, scream and shout!” The GOP Pandemic Response model.

They have already replaced it, with nothing, for many who’ve lost coverage since Trump “won”.

After 8 years, they still don’t have a clue.

Colorado has floated a “public option” in the legislature. Immediately, the media is flooded with ads paid for by whom? We don’t know. But they all say the same thing: “Let’s build on what’s working, not a…”

Then the actor takes a deep breath (she has to)…

“Government option run by politicians that we can’t afford…”

Say that three times in a row without taking a breath!

And Republicans are calling it a “slippery slope to single payer.”

If what we had something, we could tell that it’s working, but we don’t have anything! And Obamacare was a bandaid at best.

Unless health care is to remain a privilege of the very rich, something has to be done.

The market is not providing all the answers here.

Actually, the Party of Trump does have one health care provision they would like to enact, and you can look for it if Trump is re-elected:

They will eliminate the requirement that emergency rooms must treat people for emergency situations if they cannot pay.

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There will be many effects desired by Trump and His Disciples:

Health insurers will make more money.

ERs will have much less usage. That does NOT mean waiting times will decrease, of course. Hospitals will just cut back on ER resources to compensate for lower demand. Wait times will be constant.

Most important of all, many, many of Those People will die, especially illegals.

Re-place.

The new “place” is (deliberately) out of reach.

This is probably the first Prickly City strip I ever hearted.