Ever since the House of Representatives passed TrumpRyanCare several weeks ago, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has been secretly closeted with a small number of Republican senators drafting a s____y piece of legislation to “Repeal and Replace” the Affordable Care Act.
It is a truth universally acknowledged among Democrats and other thoughtful persons that McConnell (the husband of Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao) is the least physically impressive Senate Majority Leader since Lyndon B. Johnson.
Mitch and a few of his guys (no women!) met secretly for weeks to rewrite the nation’s best ever health care law (which went a long way to fulfilling FDR’s promises). Even Tea Party senator Mike Lee (Utah) and Arizona Republican John McCain complained on camera that they hadn't seen anything of the proposal; and Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colorado), a chipmunk masquerading as a politician, hasn’t yet said whether he will vote for the bill, though he probably will, since he is part of the Senate GOP leadership.
McConnell is rushing TrumpMcConnellCare through the Senate, planning to have it voted on before the Fourth of July recess, without ever even once showing it to Democratic senators until yesterday; McConnell’s plan is to push his bill through with no committee hearings. He needs 50 Republican votes so that Donald Trump’s vice president, former conservative radio and television talk show host and Tea Party fave Mike Pence, can get TrumpMcConnelRyanCare passed, with Pence casting the deciding vote, just as he did when the Senate voted to confirm Betsy DeVos, the least qualified Education Secretary ever.
But McConnell is having trouble with at least five of his Republican colleagues, including Mike Lee (TP-Utah), Ted Cruz (TP-Texas), Rand Paul (TP-Kentucky), Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin), and Dean Heller (R-Nevada). Heller is the most vulnerable GOP senator heading into the 2018 midterms. There are 52 GOP senators.
Associate solitary reporter Melissa Smith was able to ferret out details of McConnell’s version of TrumpCare while it was still being worked out behind closed doors. When Smith finally was able to see TrumpMcConnellCare, she promptly discovered that it would, if passed, end Medicaid as we know it and have the result of transferring millions and millions of dollars to the wealthy. To do so, she had to stalk McConnell for weeks, only to discover that he has transformed himself into a turtle and that he had been hiding his draft statute directly under his very thick skin.
“First, we kill Medicaid,” McConnell explained to Smith. “Then we forget to tell seniors that their Medicare premiums will soar as soon as Trump attacks North Korea, somehow convincing them that with extra resources being devoted to taking out Kim Jongun and replacing him with banished South Korean president Park Geun-hye, military employment will double, thus bizarrely improving the economy with beneficial effects for the troubled Medicare Trust Fund.”
“But all this,” McConnell continued, “will reduce our deficit, thus pleasing Sarah Palin and her Tea Party buddies.”
“Mr. Trump has a notoriously short attention span, and he doesn’t give a hot turd for the poor, so I have slicked up TrumpMcConnellCare to make it worse than TrumpRyanCare. I’m the saviest senator ever.”
“It’s gonna be a real interesting week,” McConnell explained, as he broke out his Jack Daniels on the rocks, without offering any of it to Smith.