Editor’s note: Walt Amses is a writer and former educator who lives in Calais.
[W]hen the first fatality of your health care initiative is your health care initiative, you’ve probably either over- or underestimated something really, really big. In the case of Trumpcare, or the American Health Care Act (AHCA), the purported repeal and replacement of Obamacare, it was an ongoing catastrophe, stripping bare the delusion Republicans, as promised, would (or could) provide insurance for everyone at a much lower cost.
The bill, an exercise in deception, cruelty and a thinly disguised effort to provide a huge tax cut for the extremely wealthy at the expense of the poor, was itself DOA courtesy of the wingnut wing of the GOP who reference themselves as the “Freedom Caucus” without apparent irony. Their problem with the legislation was that parts of it provided actual health care, which they adamantly oppose. Seriously, the out-of-the-solar-system far, far, far right wanted things like doctor visits and maternity care excised from the plan.
In the weeks before the speaker finally pulled the plug, I had the unique perspective of watching the proceedings while battling a nasty episode of the flu, to which I initially responded with an almost Trumpian level of self pity, marinated in ludicrous anger. I don’t usually get sick, at least I haven’t in several years, so it was surprising when I did because I didn’t know how to express my misery appropriately so screaming at the TV whenever Paul Ryan’s visage popped up made a lot of sense at the time.
The speaker of the House distinguished himself not only for his health care duplicity as far as I was concerned, but for leapfrogging over Eric Trump as having the most punchable face I’ve ever seen. I wasn’t sleeping all that well, which added to my crankiness. One of the fringe benefits of whatever microbes I’d acquired was a king hell cough that, like Dracula, showed up mainly when the sun went down. That Ryan resembles an Addams Family extra probably didn’t help matters.
I imagined how it would be for someone to feel as badly as I did and not have the option of going to the doctor or filling a prescription; relying on the emergency room if things got really bad.
When after a week I made a doctor’s appointment, the utter simplicity of that choice brought me abruptly to the realization of just how lucky I was, being able do that without giving it so much as a second thought because I was covered by health insurance. It was sobering and somewhat embarrassing that for 35 years I’d taken for granted employer-provided benefits that had my back in every medical situation my family experienced.
I imagined how it would be for someone to feel as badly as I did and not have the option of going to the doctor or filling a prescription; relying on the emergency room if things got really bad. Although I’m retired now, there were several days I was ill enough that I wouldn’t have been able to work but it wouldn’t have been a problem since I had paid sick leave. Another benefit that is anathema to right: “Bad for business.”
But my privileged-status guilt was short lived, evolving into a kind of white-hot fury over exactly what congressional Republicans were attempting to do at the expense of the less fortunate. My having health benefits wasn’t the problem. That those same benefits were not available to everyone else was the problem. Although not much conservatives do surprises me anymore, I was still appalled at their transparent effort to pin a smiley face on dumping 24 million Americans off health care rolls.
Ryan had the audacity to suggest that repealing Obamacare would finally provide Americans with the “freedom” to choose a health care plan “they could afford” while touting “access” to a variety of insurance options. In reality, Ryan’s Orwellian doublespeak meant that affordable health insurance might not include anything recognizable as insurance while we would have “access” in the Tiffany sense — anyone could shop at the exclusive NYC emporium, all you need is money. Lots and lots of money.
But perhaps the ultimate “Oh my God” of this entire fiasco might very well have been the speaker’s last resort PowerPoint presentation. Jacket off, sleeves rolled up, wielding a Sharpie, the visual might as well have had “Photo Op” emblazoned across the bottom. As hysterical the image of Ryan as a befuddled substitute teacher, the very real shock of the presentation was his saying “Insurance cannot work if healthy people have to pay more to subsidize the sick” … which is precisely the way insurance is designed to work. That the main architect of Trumpcare was clueless about insurance certainly didn’t enhance the bill’s chances of survival.
As I regained some semblance of health, I also eventually came to my senses, glad this abysmal legislation failed and that — in Ryan’s own words — Obamacare was still the “law of the land,” at least for a while. But what’s troubling me and I believe should trouble everyone else as well, is how the last few weeks clearly illuminated the toxic politics of health care. Unless and until some monumental changes are made, the United States — the wealthiest country on earth — will disgracefully remain the only industrialized nation without universal coverage.
