
I think of the Affordable Care Act as a 14-year-old house. (It’s actually only seven, but it’s been a rough ride so far.) It’s in OK shape, but it could use a little fixing up. The carpets need to go, maybe replaced with some nice faux hardwood, the countertops are a little grungy, and a paint job would be nice. It’s a place that needs some TLC, yes, but great googly moogly, only a madman would talk about blowing it up or burning it down. I mean—what?

Only a madman. Or a Republican.

The ACA ain’t perfect, I get that. And it would just be refreshing beyond belief if the throbbing jagoffs of the GOP—not that I want to indulge in any gratuitous name-calling—would, you know, hook up with the Dems like reasonable members of Congress did so many eons ago, and make some tweaks, corrections, adjustments, and just generally make it better. Obviously, I’ve been consuming way too many THC-soaked Skittles. That whole “working together to come up with a acceptable compromise” thing? How 20th century! You know, like, squaresville, man! Here in the 21st, the new D.C. paradigm is Obstructional Dysfunction. What’s this jive about Workable Compromise? What, you trying to ruin our 11 percent approval rating?

I think I know how this health insurance scene will eventually all come together. One visionary, bold, progressive state in the United States—Vermont? Oregon? California?—will pass its own single-payer program, and relatively quickly, that will show the rest of the country how it’s done. That will be the beginning, the foot in the proverbial door, for our national Medicare. This is exactly how it happened in Canada, as that country was inspired to do for its citizens what the folks in Saskatchewan province did for themselves in the 1920s (and interestingly, it wasn’t urban Ontario but rural, farm-oriented Saskatchewan).

Then again, Bernie, god bless him, is ready to introduce a national single-payer bill in the Senate. Listen for it, be ready to roll, and feel that Bern. Why the hell not?

Twitler tweet this past Monday—“The super liberal Democrat in the Georgia congressional race tomorrow wants to protect criminals, allow illegal immigration, and raise taxes!” So sane people, while digesting this slime, must remember one thing—our president is a chronic, blatant, unrepentant liar. Therefore, we can assume that Trump is lying his ass off here about Jon Ossoff, which means, therefore, that Ossoff must be a perfectly splendid candidate. (In fact, he is.) And this is how we must now process the words of our president in 2017. Sad!