Doing Harm

“Do no harm” is the core principle of medical practice and bioethics. But Congressional Republicans, with a couple of exceptions (Senators Collins and Murkowski) have no ethics. Never have I seen so much frantic effort devoted to doing as much harm as possible to as many people as possible.

Under the guise of a healthcare bill, this McConnell/Ryan gang of suck-up toadies is trying to pass a no-care bill that would take medical insurance away from millions of the most vulnerable Americans and provide a huge tax break to millionaires and corporations. This is no healthcare bill; it’s tax relief for the rich riding on the backs of the poor and middle class.

For seven years, Republicans turned their backs on the American people and worked to destroy Obama’s presidency. Proudly declaring themselves the “party of NO,” they blocked, obstructed, and propagandized everything President Obama tried to do for the American people. They have been ranting and raving for seven years about what a disaster the Affordable Care Act, which they dubbed “Obamacare,” has been, but by many measures they are wrong. Not to worry. This is a party that does not accept facts or evidence about anything. Does the Affordable Care Act have problems? Yes. But it is a working structure that is in place. As many Democrats have pointed out, the problems in the ACA can be fixed, but Congressional Republicans will not hear of it. Working behind the scenes with no debate, until forced to do so now, they have repeatedly tried to force votes on a vicious bill that would only do harm by stripping benefits that people already have under the ACA.

Rather than working for the people who elected them, this gang, made up largely of men, has had three items on their agenda: repealing and replacing “Obamacare,” depriving women of reproductive health options, and giving tax breaks to the one percent of the wealthiest Americans and corporations.

In recent months, they’ve had the opportunity to reveal the plan they presumably have been working on for these past seven years. And they've come up empty. Neither the would-be emperor in the White House nor the so-called healthcare bill has any clothes. They are bare for all to see who they really are: a bunch of liars, con-men, and immoral stooges, many of them blatantly anti-woman and racist. They are cheered on by the infantile destroyer-in-chief in the White House whose only interest is in using every tool of government to enrich himself and his family. The country be damned!