May 04, 2017
This is one of those days when I wish I could write a profanity-laced tirade because there aren’t very many family-friendly words that properly describe what it’s like to watch evil prevail.
My bosses tell me I can’t do that, though, so I won’t.
Should I successfully sneak such a screed past them, I’d be in a position where – courtesy of the pre-existing condition of being a crime victim who racked up a seven-digit hospital bill – I’d be poop out of luck when it came to getting affordable health insurance for me and my family.
Fine, that’s a bit of an exaggeration.
When it comes to the healthcare bill that Congressional Republicans championed to soothe their fragile, loss-saddled, orange-skinned leader’s ego, the chances of it becoming law are practically nil, at least in its current form. (Or at least it should be; who knows anymore?)
That doesn’t matter, though.
The fact that they even entertained legislation that would strip health insurance from millions and punish those with a litany of pre-existing conditions (without even knowing the economic ramifications thereof, no less!) is bad enough.
What we saw and heard happen at 2:17 p.m. on Thursday, May 4, 2017, when they started singing "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye" on the Congressional floor was an abdication of morality by 217 human beings.
It's Thursday, Mr. President, and your party is trying to throw 24 million people off of health care today. Are you still concerned? https://t.co/OSTJkw8XyC
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) May 4, 2017
Sure, they could argue their president was living up to promises made leading up to an election he won despite having received three million fewer votes than his opponent.
That they told us all along that they were dead-set on repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act.
That Obamacare’s bad derp and instead of having a plan in place to actually replace it derp we’ll just speed this through a vote derp so we can get to our little party in a garden outside the home of a man whose family doesn’t even want to live with him derp.
That we shouldn’t worry, because there’s nothing to see here.
Well, that’s all well and good within a political bubble, especially when THEY DIDN'T EVEN FULLY READ THE BILL FOR WHICH THEY VOTED.
For people in the real world, though, there are dire consequences the likes of which the conveniently exempted elected officials don’t come close to relating.
Today, evil, greed and worship of false political idols won. That's a horribly depressing thing.
Here’s hoping the whole lot of 'em carry today’s vote like an albatross necklace that sends them home in 2018 to districts filled with people furious that their former officials decided they shouldn't have health care anymore.
It's never nice to speak ill of the dead. After today, though, I won't grieve for anybody who voted to take insurance away from millions of Americans when they die, as all of us eventually will.
They don't deserve the first lick of sympathy.
