Sham and Shame

Bill Cassidy is a gastroenterologist by training and a freshman senator from Louisiana who, along with Lindsey Graham and Rick Santorum (yes, that Rick Santorum), wrote the new Republican health care bill. As many of you know, Jimmy Kimmel has been pointing out Cassidy's shimmering stances on his own health care bill, the stances that shift depending on which way the light hits him. After initially promising that he wouldn't deny anyone in the US insurance and that he would absolutely guarantee that people with pre-existing conditions, like Kimmel's infant son, like me, like my adult son with asthma, like many if not most people, would have access to affordable health care.

The problem with that promise and the problem with the bill is the language of the bill also shape shifts. Yes, the bill does prohibit states from denying coverage to individuals with pre-existing conditions but it does nothing, not one thing, to control the costs of that coverage. In fact, as written right now (and remember that they want to rush this monstrosity through by September 30), the bill incentivizes states to allow higher premiums and higher charges at hospitals and doctors' offices in order to reduce the cost of insurance and care for younger and healthier consumers. It still finds that simply being a woman is a pre-existing condition because women can get pregnant, a very expensive medical condition these days.

And if you think that because Cassidy is a physician that he cares about the poor or the sick, just remember how Louisiana treated the poor and the sick after Katrina. Or for that matter before Katrina.

If you find any of these facts reprehensible, you can contact your senators by email if you go to their websites, or you can reach the Senate switchboard at  (202) 224-3121 and ask to be directed to your state's senators' offices. It generally does not do good for someone from another state to contact any senators, so I cannot contact Lisa Murkowski or Susan Collins or Jeff Flake (or even Bill Cassidy). But if you live in Alaska or Maine or Arizona or any state where your senators are still not committed to this debacle, you can put in your two cents. My state's senators are a hopeless cause--Orrin Hatch is a senile sneak and Mike Lee is just a sneak (or snake if you prefer that spelling).