The fight to stop the dastardly GOP and Trump efforts to repeal of Obamacare is a fight for our lives. The growing resistance has disrupted those plans and forced the GOP on its heels. The coming week is critical in the legislative calendar. Every GOP move must be met with resistance. We can defeat the GOP Senate Trumpcare bill! If the GOP bill passed it would:
- cause 22 million people to lose coverage, premiums would go up, care quality would go down and thousands will die;
- increase inequality by giving a huge tax break to the .1%, insurance and pharmaceutical corporations;
- destroy Medicaid, beginning with the unraveling of Medicare and Social Security and jeopardize the entire social safety net;
- Millions of jobs will be lost;
- disproportionately harm people of color, women, children, disabled, seniors, and rural communities and de-fund Planned Parenthood;
- overrule the majority view that healthcare is a human right;
- be a huge setback to the growing “Medicare for All” and single payer movement.
The Senate GOP crafted the bill in secret and intended to ram it through before the July 4 recess. But once the contents became public the groundswell of opposition forced Mitch McConnell to postpone the vote. If more than three Republican Senators join every Democrat in voting against the bill, it will fail. Eleven Republicans now say they cannot support it in its present form. The longer the vote is delayed the more likely it is to kill it entirely.
GOP leadership is carrying out the Koch Brothers plot to destroy Medicaid.
GOP leadership is carrying out the Koch Brothers plot to destroy Medicaid. They are banking on people believing the lie Medicaid is just for people of color and the poor. But seniors, those with disabilities and children across the board, and many who voted for Trump, use Medicaid. And states, which expanded Medicaid under Obamacare, including some states with Republican Governors, do not want to dismantle Medicaid and cause a crisis. They are some of the biggest opponents of repeal.
Republicans badly miscalculated.
The GOP badly miscalculated. They thought the resistance would not be sustainable. Instead it has grown especially in the key states of AZ, NV, ME, OH, PA, AL, LA where Republican Senators are up for re-election in 2018. On July 6, scores of #SitInSaveLives actions were held at GOP Senator offices.
We can win this! Keep up the pressure! Call your Senator! Attend a town hall meeting! Sign a petition! Send a letter to the editor!
Here are links to get connected to call your senators and toolkits for grassroots organizing. Join actions in your area or initiate actions if there are none.
A growing and united resistance can win!
Image: Creative Commons 3.0
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Joelle Fishman chairs the Connecticut Communist Party USA. She is a Commissioner on the City of New Haven Peace Commission, serves on the executive board of the Alliance of Retired Americans in Connecticut and is an active member of many economic rights and social justice organizations. She was a candidate for Congress from 1973 to 1982, maintaining minor-party ballot status for the Communist Party in Connecticut's Third Congressional District. As chair of the CPUSA Political Action Commission, she has played an active role in the broad labor and people's alliance that defeated the ultra-right in the 2008 elections and continues to mobilize for health care, worker rights and peace.
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