The TrumpCare bill proposed by the president, the RyanCare bill that passed the House and the McConnellCare bill pending before the Senate constitute aggressive attacks against the health care of countless millions of Americans and represent a low point in the history of the Republican party.

The Trump Republicans are wrong. The Senate should defeat and destroy the healthcare travesty that Senate Republican leaders are pressuring Republican Senators to support. Any Republican Senators who vote for this travesty, written in secret and widely despised by voters, will face major retribution at the polls.





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Senator(I-Vt.) and other Democratic supporters of single-payer healthcare are right. What is popular throughout the democratic world is infinitely more popular at home than TrumpCare, RyanCare, McConnellCare and any other variations of the attacks against improved healthcare offered by the Trump Republicans.Instead of repealing and replacing ObamaCare, the Senate should defeat and destroy TrumpCare in all its forms and consider proposals that will make healthcare truly affordable for every American.Here is a cruel and ugly fact about the GOP healthcare plans. The Republican war against Medicaid, which has only just begun, would lead to many seniors being thrown out of nursing homes they could no longer afford without support from Medicaid that Republicans would coldly cut.Last Sunday, the New York Times published a list of the lies told by President Trump. One of the most outrageous lies that Trump told was that, unlike most Republicans, he will defend Medicaid. It turns out that Trump and Senate Republican leaders have joined forces in support of a heartless plan that would eliminate Medicaid for some 15 million Americans by 2026, according to the Congressional Budget Office Want to bet there are more than 77,000 voters in three key electoral vote states and a ton of voters in the other 47 states who wish they knew the truth about Trump before they cast their votes in 2016? Want to bet there are lots of voters in these states who voted in previous elections for Republican Senators, who will remember their votes for this travesty in future elections in 2018 and beyond?Here is another cruel and ugly fact about the GOP healthcare plan. While many grandmas and grandpas in nursing home residences will hear a knock on the door from someone telling them they are no longer welcome because they cannot afford to pay the bills, many moms caring for babies will learn they can no longer afford maternal care after Republicans — who are no longer called the party of Lincoln — made the cruel and unusual decision to cut their insurance, too.What kind of party would savagely attack the interests of grandmas in nursing homes and mommies nursing their babies?Someday, Sen.(R-Ky.) will have a likeness of him placed in Statuary Hall, and future Senate historians will write that he tried to write a healthcare bill in secret as though America is a one-party Republican state. It will be remembered that he pressured his fellow Republican Senators to reduce the number of insured Americans by 22 million in his unsavory march back to the past.One of the barely disguised travesties of the healthcare plan of the Trump Republicans is that, after cutting federal support, they would give red-state Republican governors, legislators and insurance commissioners the power to remove requirements that insurers cover key services, including maternal and mental health care.What kind of party would target those who are trying to survive mental illness? What would President Lincoln or Pope Francis, who Trump recently met with, say about Republican policies that savagely endanger the health of the poor in a bill that will finance lavish tax cuts for the rich?The Trump Republicans would devastate the financial interests of millions of American seniors. The Congressional Budget Office forecasts that 64-year-olds making $26,500 would pay $1,700 for premiums per year under ObamaCare, which would skyrocket to $6,500 in premiums per year under the Senate bill and $14,600 under the House bill.Want to bet there are lots of seniors who voted for Trump in 2016 and voted in previous elections for Senate Republicans, who now fully understand that their true friends are Democrats?Democrats should be visionary and fearless. They should champion single-payer healthcare. Whether the next great moment of American social progress is known as a Medicare-for-all system, or as a public option that would be available to all Americans if necessary, polls suggest that public support would be in the range of 60 percent of voters While Republicans want to reduce the number of insured Americans by 23 million in the House GOP bill and by 22 million in the Senate GOP plan, Democrats should fight for insurance coverage that is available and affordable for 100 percent of the nation.Senate Republicans should stage an open revolt against President Trump and Senate Republican leaders and vote to defeat and destroy all versions of the TrumpCare travesty. If they do not, America will rue the day, and Republican Senators will rue their vote.

Brent Budowsky was an aide to former Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Texas) and former Chief Deputy Majority Whip Bill Alexander (D-Ark.). He holds an LL.M. degree in international financial law from the London School of Economics. He is a longtime regular columnist for The Hill and can be contacted at brentbbi@webtv.net.

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