Gov. Jay Inslee: Obamacare Repeal is ‘a Piggy Bank to Give Tax-Cuts to the Wealthy’

Washington Governor Jay Inslee appeared on CNN’s “New Day” this morning and told Alisyn Camerota,

“I think that when you get into an airplane and you look at the cockpit and you see the pilot saying ‘boy, look at all these gauges this is really complicated,’ you know you have a problem.”

Watch courtesy of CNN:

Inslee told Camerota:

“And we have a big problem here because the president basically has tried to tell us that whatever is coming, and we don’t know what’s coming because they don’t know what’s coming – it’s confusion wrapped around chaos right now – he said he won’t take away people’s coverage but during this weekend what we’ve found out is that…this will take away coverage from people. It will take away 60,000 people’s coverage from people in my state.”

Inslee said he gave this information to Tom Price, Trump’s secretary of Health and Human Services, and asked Price if he could promise that these people would not lose their coverage “he could not give us that assurance.”

He pointed out that when Republicans “voted 40 times to take away Obamacare and have not voted once to give us a replacement it’s very disturbing.”

Camerota said “In Congress, Democrats do not have a big hand to play” but Inslee felt that “Democrats can have a role to play” in that “Republicans are having a head-on collision with reality,” hoping they could “preserve the very popular parts” of Obamacare while still saving money. They will need Democrat votes, he says.

Democrats have already said they won’t bail the GOP out by saving them from themselves. If Republicans screw this up, as seems certain they will, they will, as events at multiple town halls have attested, hurt themselves badly in the mid-terms.

Inslee was clear about the Republican goals in a repeal of Obamacare:

“The effort here is not to improve health it’s just to have a piggy bank to give tax-cuts to the wealthy. And what they have found out is you can’t do that. You’re running into reality.”

That Donald Trump “at this late date” cannot articulate a plan is very disturbing, Inslee said, and he is right about that. Donald Trump can brag about what he thinks he has accomplished in his first four weeks as president, but in truth, he has accomplished very little.

Republicans have had eight years to think about a replacement for Obamacare and Trump can make no excuses in that regard either. There is no excuse. Trump promised a replacement and he has none.

And Trump should have known. He says he’s a smart guy. If so, why can’t he say what Bernie Sanders has said: “Well, some of us had an idea.”

Trump has no idea. He never did.

That simple truth is about to become plain to every American, and the GOP, as Inslee says, has come up against reality. A reality they cannot wish away any more than Americans can wish away their healthcare needs.

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Hrafnkell Haraldsson

Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen's Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.

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