Like most trilogies, the third incarnation of the Trumpcare saga is the most cynical and shameful. Graham-Cassidy is yet another attempt by senate Republicans to dismantle the current health care system and, in the process, leave millions more people without insurance and higher premiums for those who manage to keep coverage.

Of course, that’s not how they would describe it. No, they would say that they are simply giving power to the states to control their own health care systems. This is obviously misleading because it leaves out the fact that because this bill would get rid of the individual mandate and end Medicaid expansion, there will be far less money (particularly in large states where Medicaid was expanded) to cover people. Meanwhile, states that stubbornly refused Medicaid expansion (even against their own citizens’ desires) would be rewarded with money coming from those larger states. Currently, the GOP doesn’t have the votes but they’re very close. There are currently at least four undecided senators (Rand Paul, John McCain, Susan Collins, and Lisa Murkowski) who will quite literally decide the fate of the health care industry in America and millions of people's lives.

So the Democrats, facing down this prospect, agreed to make some concessions in exchange for a bipartisan process to fix aspects of the Affordable Care Act. This, according to a Chuck Schumer spokesperson, included giving Republicans the so-called "copper plans" that they've been wanting (basically a very thin level of coverage that is cheaper to buy, but more expensive to use) as well as "wide waiver authority," or basically a loophole that would allow states to opt out of certain Obamacare regulations. Make no mistake, these are terrible things that would hurt health care in this country. So why were Dems willing to offer them up? Because the stakes are incredibly high. Graham-Cassidy would lead to the end of pre-existing condition protections (in the bill, this takes the form of insurers being able to charge people with pre-existing conditions higher premiums). It would also allow insurance companies to bring back caps (maximum amounts that the insurer would spend on coverage) which means if you get sick a lot, tough shit, you might hit your lifetime cap and then be screwed. So yeah, the prospect of this bill passing is so scary that Dems were willing to put some shitty things on the table to get Republicans to deal. The GOP response? A big middle finger.

One can only hope that this refusal to engage in a normal process will lead John McCain, who voted against the last version of Trumpcare due to the fact that it didn't go through the traditional process, to stand firm and vote this down. Helping the effort to defeat Graham-Cassidy is the fact that a bipartisan group of eleven governors, most notably Alaska Governor Bill Walker, asked the Senate to oppose the bill. As Alaska's Lisa Murkowski already voted down the last repeal bill, it's good to see her governor is asking her to do the same again. Not helping the effort to defeat this terrible bill? Bill Cassidy straight up lying and saying this bill will continue to protect those with pre-existing conditions when that's simply not true.

There's ten days left to kill this thing. Go make calls.

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