Nobody knew who Senator Bill Cassidy was. He decided to come out as a Senator (and we all know how awkward coming out can be) by saying something sympathetic about Jimmy Kimmel’s kid and then Kimmel put the lug on TV to lie about his dishonorable intentions towards healthcare. Funny story, after going on TV and sounding as if he was a human being, Cassidy voted for that bill that seemed so bad at the time. After that Cassidy probably should have chosen to go back into the obscurity closet like Ken Bone or the Mooch, but Cassidy got the hot lights bug and had to stay out and proud.
For his next foray into the public he maybe should have waited for some natural disaster to devastate his state (just wait a few minutes, the hurricanes are coming fast and furious) and then he could have looked sympathetic, but he decided to follow up his Kimmel adventure by putting his name on an ACA repeal bill that is even worse than the one that Kimmel was originally telling his son’s story in order to sink.
Cassidy Doubles Down on Healthcare Dishonesty.
It’s always a bad idea to lie right in the face of a guy with a nightly TV show and millions of viewers.
Cassidy is an unfortunate messenger for defending the destruction of healthcare as he looks like a funeral director that actually embalmed himself and he’s a terrible, terrible liar like a child with their hand in the cookie jar, a cookie in their mouth and cookie crumbs all over their romper.
Kimmel: “He said he would only support a healthcare bill that made sure a child like mine would get the health coverage he needs no matter how much money his parents make and that did not have annual or lifetime caps. […]
So last week Bill Cassidy and Sen. Lindsey Graham proposed a new bill, the Graham-Cassidy bill, and this new bill actually does pass the Jimmy Kimmel test, but a different Jimmy Kimmel test. With this one, if your child has a pre-existing condition he will get the care he needs, but if and only if his father is Jimmy Kimmel. Otherwise, you might be screwed. Now, I don’t know what happened to Bill Cassidy, but when he was on this publicity tour, he listed his demands for a healthcare bill very clearly. These were his words. He said he wants coverage for all, no discrimination based on pre-existing conditions, lower premiums for middle-class families, and no lifetime caps. And guess what. The new bill does none of those things. […]
Not only did Bill Cassidy fail the Jimmy Kimmel test, he failed the Bill Cassidy test. He failed his own test. And you don’t see that happen very much. This bill he came up with is actually worse than the one that, thank God, Republicans like Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski and John McCain torpedoed over the summer. And I hope they have the courage and good sense to do that again with this one […]
Most of the congresspeople who vote on this bill probably won’t even read it, and they want us to do the same thing—they want us to treat it like an iTunes service agreement. And this guy, Bill Cassidy, just lied right to my face.
On with the Morning Joe chain gang he kept saying that “nobody likes change, even when it’s from worse to better.” A novel way of saying that your change makes things better but people just can’t accept it. People actually love change that makes things better. Everyone shopping for a new TV is excited about change. What people hate is when it’s really obvious to analysts that you are lying about what a piece of legislation does that would not make healthcare coverage better for people.
As Nate Cohn says: It’s certainly possible to defend the Graham-Cassidy bill honestly ― by arguing, for example, that cutting federal spending is more important than improving access to health care. Cassidy has frequently said lower federal spending is a big priority for him.
And later in the “Morning Joe” interview, when Cassidy noted that coverage is already unaffordable for many Americans, even with the Affordable Care Act in place, he was absolutely right.
The reality is that, by requiring insurers to sell coverage regardless of pre-existing conditions, the 2010 health care law has raised premiums. Subsidies insulate the majority of buyers from those higher prices, but still leave millions paying full price ― and paying much more than they did previously.
But multiple studies have shown that the net effect of the Affordable Care Act has been better access to care and less financial hardship because of medical bills. Cassidy’s repeal bill would reverse that progress, as Avalere and other analysts have pointed out ― helping some people, for sure, but overall making access and affordability worse.
The klaxxons have been sounded about this sneak attack bill that is now only under consideration, by the way, because of Chuck and Nancy’s deal with Trump to free up Senate time that would have been spent working on averting a debt ceiling disaster.
The troops must be mustered, no doubt, but this bill is so bad that it’s hard to see anybody who voted against the last bill changing their vote. Even Rand Paul is looking like he’ll vote against this one. Hope I’m right.
The Polislice 