There he was, the speaker of the House, on my phone and my TV at the same time, doing the same thing.
Lying.
Over and over and over. Mike Johnson had the lies down so well that he rarely even changed the words from interview to interview. On ABC, CNN, Fox News—he said virtually the same things, lying every single time.
You have to hand it to Republicans. They know how to spin a tale and shove it down your throat. Everyone is on the same page. Everyone is using the same talking points. And then their media partners at Fox and Newsmax and all around the AM dial and the bro-cast podcast world all repeat those talking points.
The truth doesn’t stand a chance. Which probably explains how we ended up with a 34-time felon who led a coup against the country as president for a second time.
But at the risk of banging my head against that rightwing misinformation wall, let’s try a little truth here, complete with facts and junk.
And let’s start here: Democrats are not trying to give “illegal aliens” free health care.
Honestly, that’s such an absurd and easily disproven statement that it’s hard to believe so many grown adults have bought it. Maybe that’s yet another sign of the effectiveness of that rightwing propaganda machine that has suckered so many. But whatever it is, take a step back for a moment and seriously consider whether you think an entire group of politicians in this country are willing to shut down the government and put Americans out of work to “give illegal aliens health care,” as Johnson and his Republican pals are claiming.
You know it’s wrong, don’t you? Just saying it out loud, you know without a single other fact that that statement is probably untrue, right?
That’s because it is.
The reality is this: Democrats want to roll back some of the limitations implemented by Republicans in their incredibly unpopular “Big Beautiful Bill” passed in July, which dramatically cut Affordable Care Act subsidies overall and placed drastic limits on who is eligible for those subsidies.
More specifically, Democrats want to continue to allow immigrants who are in the country LEGALLY to qualify for the subsidies and purchase health insurance through the marketplace. For example, the BBB restricted immigrants who have followed our laws through the asylum program from receiving subsidies and obtaining ACA coverage. Those immigrants are not here illegally. They’ve done exactly what we’ve asked them to do—follow the laws and come here through our legal immigration system.
Democrats also want to stop the cuts to those subsidies overall—cuts that the Kaiser Family Foundation has said would cost some 4 million Americans their health insurance and send prices for insurance soaring more than 114 percent on the marketplace.
In Alabama alone, that would mean some 130,000 people would lose their health insurance. That’s on top of the more than 100,000 who currently sit in the coverage gap because this state has stubbornly refused to expand Medicaid coverage.
It was going to drive up uncompensated care, according to various studies, as much as 20 percent nationwide, and likely higher in poverty-stricken states such as Alabama. That was going to lead to the certain closure of numerous hospitals around the state and country.
This seems like a good time to remind you that these drastic cuts to healthcare, which are going to leave so many Americans without insurance and at risk of losing their entire life savings due to treatable illness, are in exchange for tax cuts that almost exclusively benefit the wealthy and major corporations. If we halved the tax cuts to the top earners proposed in the BBB, it would pay for the health care cuts.
Sit back and think about that.
In response to these stone-cold facts, Republicans have tried a separate talking point—that Dems want to stop the $50 billion in funds Trump proposed for rural health care.
Nope.
Democrats actually want that $50 billion and the other $850 billion that the BBB cuts from health care funding. If Trump wants to toss another $50 billion on the pile, OK.
The bottom line here is this: You are seeing in the most stark terms the fundamental differences between the two parties. On one side, you have a bunch of politicians fighting tooth and nail to ensure that the poorest among us receive basic health care. On the other side, you have a bunch of politicians fighting tooth and nail to protect tax breaks for the rich and lying like crazy to take health care away from the poorest among us.
You know, I guess if I were in the second group, I’d lie like crazy too.
