Russian Money May Explain Republican Attack on Americans' Access to Affordable Healthcare

1. REPUBLICANS TOOK IN MILLIONS FROM MOSCOW

From that very Texan and very middle American newspaper, the Dallas Morning News...

"Donald Trump and the political action committees for Mitch McConnell, Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, Lindsey Graham, John Kasich and John McCain accepted $7.35 million in contributions from a Ukrainian-born oligarch who is the business partner of two of Russian president Vladimir Putin's favorite oligarchs and a Russian government bank.
"During the 2015-2016 election season, Ukrainian-born billionaire Leonard "Len" Blavatnik contributed $6.35 million to leading Republican candidates and incumbent senators. Mitch McConnell was the top recipient of Blavatnik's donations, collecting $2.5 million for his GOP Senate Leadership Fund under the names of two of Blavatnik's holding companies, Access Industries and AI Altep Holdings, according to Federal Election Commission documents and OpenSecrets.org."


SUMMARY: THE RUSSIANS BOUGHT REPUBLICANS DURING 2015 AND 2016. TOTAL RUSSIAN INVESTMENT (THAT WE KNOW ABOUT): $7.35 MILLION.

(This is separate from the millions which were paid by the Russians to Trump’s campaign manager and national security advisor and millions more laundered through his Commerce Secretary’s Cypriot bank.)

2. RUSSIANS ARE INVESTING MILLIONS IN AMERICAN HEALTHCARE CORPORATIONS

Bloomberg is reporting that Russian billionaire oligarchs (and there are no oligarchs in Russia who are not close to Putin) have invested heavily in corporate healthcare and Big Pharma in the U.S.

(Essentially, Russians are confident that for-profit healthcare and Big Pharma will very soon see a big growth in profits. How do they know this? Maybe they have the Republican Congress and the Republican White House in their pocket.)

SUMMARY: THE RUSSIANS BACKING THE REPUBLICANS ARE BETTING THEY WILL REWEAPONIZE AMERICAN HEALTHCARE

3. REPUBLICANS DO WHAT THEIR BILLIONAIRE BACKERS TELL THEM TO DO

The Russians who gave this big money will expect their Republican congressmen and senators to deliver, why else would they have given them the money? The Guardian is reporting that the Koch Brothers who give millions to Republicans every election cycle have signaled that the money will dry up if the Republicans don’t repeal Obamacare and cut billionaires’ taxes. Republicans are listening because they are afraid. They do what their billionaire donors tell them.

SUMMARY: THE REPUBLICAN PARTY ISN’T AN AMERICAN PARTY, IT IS A MONEY PARTY.

IT ALSO LOOKS AND SOUNDS AND ACTS VERY MUCH LIKE IT’S A RUSSIAN PARTY.

FOLLOW THE MONEY.

FOLLOW THE RUBLES.

Republicans Again Targeting The Poor And The Sick On Healthcare Access

Lawrence O’Donnell played the Kimmel monologue a bit early last night so prime time audiences could hear Kimmel tell how Cassidy (of Graham-Cassidy) "lied right to my face.” Kimmel then urges everyone to phone Republicans in the Senate to tell them how evil this bill is.

202 224 3121

Again, the swing Republicans on this issue are Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, John McCain of Arizona, and Susan Collins of Maine. Try to explain to them why this bill is so hard on the most vulnerable Americans, and why it is so damned unfair and cruel. Because they have a hard time comprehending it.

Earlier, Cassidy went on Kimmel’s show and smiled and promised his Obamacare repeal would not target the poor and the sick. It does target the poor and the sick. It cuts funding for the poor and the sick more aggressively than the previous Republican bills did.

Republican Senator Cassidy quickly responded to Kimmel's charges by saying Kimmel "just doesn't understand..." Saying his plan does indeed cover people with pre-existing conditions.

Reported in The Hill newspaper

Sure it does––but it allows insurers to jack their premiums sky high to punish them for being sick. What a cynical liar. Just as all Americans have the right to live in million dollar homes all Americans do have the right to buy decent health insurance––but they can’t afford it. Obamacare forced health insurers to stop offering junk coverage and also forced them to stop penalizing the people with preexisting conditions. The Republicans keep trying to push the poor back onto junk coverage that doesn’t really cover anything serious, and their plans keep punishing the sick for being sick.

The Republicans are rich. The Republicans represent the rich. The Republicans, like all members of Congress, have paid guaranteed Cadillac healthcare coverage for life and don’t give a damn about anyone else because they don’t comprehend what everyone else faces.

Here is President Trump’s healthcare advisor’s reasoning on the issue (via John Harwood): Trump adviser Moore on unfairness of the healthy subsidizing the sick: “People want insurance for their own families, not other peoples’ "

Which misses the entire point of health insurance, that the many who are healthy help support the few who are sick or in fear of their life. The Republican excuse is similar to their refusal to vote for hurricane relief because their districts weren't hit by the hurricane. (Until they were hit and then they demanded it.) The whole reason for covering everyone is the cost advantage of economies of scale.

It’s the familiar Republican refrain “I got mine. Fuck you.” Which they usually phrase more delicately.

So we need to flood the Senate with phone calls again: 202 224 3121

Because as long as they control the Congress they will keep trying to screw the poor and the sick.

It seems more likely the Republicans will kill our much improved healthcare system this time because they are being bribed/blackmailed by the giant money teats, the Koch Brothers, who have threatened to withhold cash from Republican candidates in 2018 unless they deliver on healthcare (removing millions from it) and tax “reform” (tax cuts for billionaires).

Koch blackmail on healthcare vote reported in The Guardian

Here is a discussion with Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut earlier on Ari Melber's program

The Republicans are also attacking access to healthcare in another way, by drastically defunding the assistance poor Americans need to afford it: Analysis of how the GOP Reinsurance Plan would end up screwing the poor and the sick, from the StarTribune

Need more evidence that there’s something sinister about the Republicans’ healthcare strategy? News that a Russian oligarch (read mobster and Putin ally) is working with Washington insiders to invest millions of rubles in American healthcare.

Russian mob money targeting American healthcare reported by Bloomberg

Why? Because Republican healthcare is what’s known as a Killer Business Model.

The Republicans want to re-weaponize our healthcare system against us for profit.

Deconstructing Trump

The Washington Post's Dana Milbank on Trump’s fantasyland. "...What does [Trump] do now that he is in a job that is so hard, running a government that is so big? He pretends. He has developed an elaborate fantasyland in which everything goes according to plan." While Trump is fooling himself is he also fooling us? Or is he just making us look like fools?

From CNN: What if Hillary were a fraction as corrupt as Donald Trump? What if she funneled millions in taxpayer dollars into her own pocket via resorts she owned? Trump's corruptions are hard to count, there are so many and so massive Americans seem unable to process what is happening. ...but Hillary's emails.

Brexit was a rehearsal for what happened here. A big part of the coup there and here was achieved by a big data company owned by the Mercer family who, like the Russians, found a useful stooge in Trump. From The Guardian.

Golf writer James Dodson accepted a golf invitation from Trump and son. From WBUR.

“As we were setting off, I said, 'Eric, who’s funding? I know no banks — because of the recession, the Great Recession — have touched a golf course. You know, no one’s funding any kind of golf construction. It’s dead in the water the last four or five years.' And this is what he said. He said, 'Well, we don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia.' I said, 'Really?' And he said, 'Oh, yeah. We’ve got some guys that really, really love golf, and they’re really invested in our programs. We just go there all the time.’"

The Palmer Report is out on the far leading edge of the reporting on this, so its content is sometimes short on substantiation. But this is a very interesting post from the other day, drawing a set of connections between Trump and Betsy DeVos’s money machine, a Russian server located in Trump Tower, and the possible hacking of thousands of voting machines in swing states. It will be interesting to see if this story emerges in more substantiated form in the NYTimes and Washington Post.

The Atlantic, a far more reliable journal (believe me, I’ve undergone the Atlantic’s rigorous fact-checking on a story) gives a summary of the unfolding Kremlingate treason (calling it a mere scandal doesn’t indicate its scope and significance) with individual segments about the persons involved.

Also from The Atlantic: Trump has been spinning his wheels for 100 days, but the House passing the repeal of ObamaCare may indicate that he’s finally getting traction. Repealing not just a fairer healthcare system but repealing the centuries-old principle of America as a nation that cares about its people, where the people give a damn about each other. The rise of TV evangelism marked the rise of a new kind of pseudo-Christianity, one that preached wealth as proof of godliness, and poverty as a sign of sinfulness. As if Jesus preferred rich people and damned the poor to Hell.

The Apocalypse––brought to you by Russia and the Republican Party

30 million Americans lost their healthcare in the middle of the night. Cause of death: Republicans. Charlie Pierce explains what happened.

Why put millions of Americans in danger of financial collapse and death? Because Republicans worship at the altar of the Killer Business Model. People who are sick and in pain and afraid of dying will pay any price. This is a Killer Business Model.

From VOX: Analysis by several political experts leads to the conclusion that Comey screwed this election as much as Putin did.

"If it weren't for Comey, Hillary Clinton would have won the popular vote by about 6 points and the Electoral College by 70 or more. And that might have turned into control of the Senate as well, though that's a little more speculative."

Summary from MotherJones

Then there’s the report by a veteran from MI6 who believes Russia has been blackmailing the president elect...

The memo reported by CNN

The Russia expert cited by CNN is being backed up by other reliable sources. One cited in The Week

VOX does a good job of summarizing the story and what it could mean.

The response of Donald Trump is blunt and ugly: I won. You lost. Shut up. Fuck you all. (I’m paraphrasing.) Reported by New York Magazine.

When so many things go so wrong so quickly for all Americans the takeover by a foreign enemy story seems a lot more believable. And the Republican Congress seems in a hurry to make it all happen before we get wise.