wealthy and health care indus-
tries. It seems telling that the
main issue that a fractured Re-
publican party can get behind
is a tax cut for the wealthiest
Americans. So why pass a bill
at all if you don't have anything
better to offer than the status
quo?
the committee process, Julie
Rovner, a Washington
Healthcare writer since 1986,
condemned the processed
commenting that “the extreme
secrecy is a situation without
precedent, at least in creating
health care law”. The process
stands in stark comparison to
the gruelling 15 months of
hearings and debates that
gave America the Affordable
Care Act. It is important to
note that whilst Bernie Sand-
ers and other Justice Demo-
crats have been gathering be-
hind a single payer, Medicare
for all program, the Democratic
establishment are yet to drill
down on how they would fix US
healthcare.
Republicans have spent eight
years voting to repeal Obamac-
are because their was no way
that any bill they put forward
would be signed. There was no
need for them to concern
themselves with how they were
going to replace it, but after
years of obstruction they final-
ly have the House, the Senate,
and the White House in their
hands and no more barriers to
achieving their goal. Yet they
seem like a party bereft of any
ideas of how to improve the
healthcare system in the US
that is compatible with their
own free-market/low tax ideol-
ogy. They faced two choices,
turn on their ideologies and
rhetoric, or push through what-
ever they can get the votes for,
regardless of the consequenc-
es. They chose the latter.
On top of this, no Senate Re-
publicans can explain their bill.
Vox did a fantastic piece of re-
porting securing interviews
with eight different Republican
Senators to try and pin them
down on what they are trying
to achieve with their
healthcare bill. Tara Golshan
asked John McCain to explain
the problems in healthcare that
Republicans are trying to solve
with their bill and he respond-
ed “Almost all of them. They’re
trying to get to 51 votes.” When
The Senate version of the
AHCA bill is being written in
secrecy, completely bypassing
6