The campaign to make people sick to make rich people wealthier never sleeps. Axios tells us how:

Senate Republicans have asked the Congressional Budget Office to analyze Sen. Ted Cruz's proposal for further health insurance deregulation, and they've asked for one estimate of a health care bill that includes his changes and one that doesn't, according to a GOP aide familiar with the discussions.

Oh, they're very cute, they are. Keep submitting proposals until you get a CBO score you can plausibly use to con the country, the elite political press, and the mind of Susan Collins into thinking you're "moderating" the bill. Even trim the massive tax cut a bit, full in the knowledge you can get that back when it's time to produce a phony "tax reform" plan. Do it over what is essentially a four-day holiday weekend.

The only variable in the calculation is the number of uninsured that will allow the big con to proceed. 20 million? 19? How many millions of American families will have to suffer so that Paul Ryan's sommelier will be kept properly busy for the next few years? How many millions of the sick and suffering will have to become sicker and suffer more before the TV pundits and op-ed cowhands declare that Mitch McConnell's genius has produced a "compromise"?

If you're going to wind up with a celebration-related injury, I suggest you do it this weekend. Labor Day may be too late.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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