BloggeRhythms

In typical fashion, Democrats reacted vehemently to the Senate version of replacement of Obamacare, although none of them seem to have read the revisions made.  

One of the first to react was Schumer who said in a speech that the bill “will result in higher costs, less care and millions of Americans will lose their health insurance, particularly through Medicaid.”

Mitch McConnell, however, highlighted elements of the bill from the floor of the Senate, saying that if the bill passes as written, it gets rid of all Obamacare taxes, keeps coverage for people with preexisting conditions, and will continue to cover adult children on their parents’ plan up to age 26.

Health savings accounts will be enhanced and strengthened. States will now have the choice of what to cover, unlike the federal government doing so, while billions will be spent stabilizing insurance markets.

In addition, McConnell said the individual mandate is gone in the Senate bill. And so is the employer mandate which is, according to Rush, “is what has led to many American employees being downsized to 29 hours a week, because the threshold was 30 hours. If an employee worked 30 hours or more, the company had to cover ’em. If they worked 29 hours or less, the company didn’t. And so this led many American companies, corporations large and small, to change the structure of their employment so that more and more people were working part time and therefore weren’t covered. McConnell says we’re getting rid of both of those.”

Rush went on to say: “The Drive-By Media already has push polls out saying how much the American people hate it. They don’t even know about it yet, but our friends in the Drive-Bys have got a push poll out; Americans think that the Republican health care bill will kill people and hurt people. Big surprise.”

Rush continued his analysis, which as usual, was right on the money, saying: “As McConnell started speaking, the Drive-Bys started trickling out their response. AP and Reuters, the New York Times, the Washington Post unanimous in saying that the Republican bill in the Senate is mean-spirited, that it will hurt people, and that it won’t work. The same people who told us that Obamacare was brilliant. The same people that told us, along with Obama, if you like your doctor, you get to keep your doctor. If you like your plan, you get to keep your plan.

“The same people that told us that Obama’s health care plan was brilliant and it was gonna insure the uninsurable, and it was gonna heal the unhealable and it was gonna make well the sick. It was gonna do all these miraculous things and it was not gonna cost any new money, oh, it was so wonderful. Of course, it was all BS. Reuters even has one of their patented push polls out. I mentioned this earlier. The headline of the Reuters story: “Most Americans Say Republican Healthcare Plan Will Be Harmful.”

Rush then referred to Avik Roy who writes at National Review and Forbes, saying he’s a scholar whose expertise is health care and that Roy had posted the following: “Finished reading the Senate [health care] bill. Put simply: If it passes, it’ll be the greatest policy achievement by a [Republican] Congress in my lifetime.” 

After reading Roy’s powerful endorsement of the Senate bill, some research on him shows that he’s an Indian-American journalist and policy advisor. He is the co-founder and president of the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, a think tank based in Austin, Texas, according to Wikipedia.

“While working as an investment research analyst in the late 2000s, Roy began blogging in response to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, from a critical point of view. The blog was republished at National Review Online, and moved to Forbes in 2011. Roy has published two books about the Affordable Care Act, as well as research and proposals though the Manhattan Institute, where he was a senior fellow from 2011 to 2016.

“Roy has been a policy advisor to three Republican Party presidential candidates. He was a health care policy advisor to Mitt Romney's 2012 campaign and was the senior advisor to Rick Perry's 2016 campaign. After Rick Perry withdrew from the race, Roy joined the 2016 presidential campaign of Marco Rubio as a policy advisor.”

Thus, when it comes to having first class credentials and intimate knowledge of the subject, the Affordable Care Act, one couldn’t find a more qualified analyst. Meaning that the Senate has evidently done a superior job in revising the disaster known as Obamacare.

Coming back to Rush, he then presented  the certainly accurate premise that “Most Americans haven’t even seen it! It has not actually been formally presented. This is exactly how they do it in the Drive-Bys. Because most low-information people are not gonna know it hasn’t been presented. They’re gonna see this: “Most Americans Say Republican Healthcare Plan Will Be Harmful.” Gonna assume that everybody else but them knows about it.”

However, the continual obstructionism with no material alternatives is apparently coming back to significantly haunt the hapless Democrats who’ve now lost five contiguous elections. The last one being the sure thing they thought they had in Georgia with Ossoff.

That’s why Pelosi's now in trouble while an influential leftist like David “Rodham” Gergen said yesterday, not only are we not going to get rid of Trump, “if we’re not careful, he’s gonna be reelected.”

Another indicator of public sentiment regarding the POTUS comes from from Tony Lee @breitbart.com who wrote: “Just three weeks into her new Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly program, Megyn Kelly’s “star is dimmer than ever,” according to television industry publication Variety.”

Television critic Sonia Saraiya notes, in a piece titled, “NBC’s Megyn Kelly Problem,” that since Kelly left Fox News in January for NBC, “whatever high-wattage star power she had has waned considerably” and “by all measures, her ‘Sunday Night’ effort has been a disaster.”

She points out many of Kelly’s flaws that were obvious to many except for NBC executives who may have chosen to overlook them because she seemed like a “sensible” Republican when Kelly attacked Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign.

"Her current track record reveals that:   
  
"The debut of her Sunday show lost to a rerun of 60 Minutes, and it has been downhill for Kelly since. Her second show lost to reruns of 60 Minutes and America’s Funniest Home Videos. Her third show that featured her controversial interview with Alex Jones was her lowest-rated show yet, drawing a measly 3.5 million viewers and losing again to reruns of 60 Minutes and America’s Funniest Home videos. As Breitbart News wrote, controversy creates cash and ratings—unless you are Kelly.

"A network executive told CNN last week that NBC’s “fundamental mistake” was thinking that Kelly was a “superstar.”

Reader, LuciLulu, commented: “It all started with her giddy smugness when she tried to take out Trump at the debate. She made a name for herself that day...but not the one she thought she would. And now she's made her bed.”

Bringing us to some news about Trump’s former rival, coming from Tim Marcin @newsweek.com, as follows:

“Just 41 percent of Americans view the former secretary of state favorably, according to a poll released by Gallup Wednesday. Fifty-seven percent, meanwhile, view Clinton unfavorably. Those figures are virtually unchanged since November, when Clinton lost the election in a somewhat shocking upset. At about that time, Gallup found 43 percent viewed Clinton favorably while 55 percent viewed her unfavorably; since then, her numbers have held pretty steady at 41/57.

“That Clinton hasn't seen a bump in support represents an anomaly from historical trends. 

"Over the past quarter century, the favorable ratings of losing presidential candidates generally have increased after the election—some in the immediate aftermath and others in the months that followed," Gallup wrote Wednesday. Typically, losing candidates can expect to see a bump in favorability of about 4 points, according to Gallup.”

Which means that, with Trump’s election, it looks like the voting public avoided putting a colossal loser in the White House. 

That’s it for today folks.

Adios