GOP health plan will be devastating
The new President Trumpled health care plan that passed the House this week penalizes the poor and benefits the rich. If you are less able to afford health care coverage, its now going to cost you more and your coverage will be reduced. And if you can afford it, you will pay less or significantly benefit more from new tax breaks. Trump and the Republican politicians say they are fulfilling the mandate of the voters. But without the votes of the poor, the lowermiddle class, the underemployed and those left behind in the economic recovery, Trump would not have been elected.
This new health care proposal benefits these people the least and penalizes them the most. So for which voters is this new proposed health care plan fulfilling a mandate? If this new proposal passes the Senate, I guess we’ll just have to change the name of our government health care plan from “Obamacare” to “TrumpDontCare.” Dan Rosenthal, Ross
Sickening smiles
Regarding “House passes GOP’s health care legislation” (May 5): There were so many smiling faces in the photograph beneath the headline.
Knowing that they and their families are thoroughly covered by the insurance afforded to members of the House of Representatives, was the reason they are patting each others’ backs and smiling so much because they had just voted to take the first step in denying health coverage to an estimated 24 million Americans? Gene Nielsen, Crescent Mills, Plumas County
‘Health Scam Act’
The photo that accompanies this front-page story explains the biggest problem with President Trump’s administration’s new health care initiative.
It was crafted by a group of rich white men, likely overjoyed because the bill’s cuts in federal subsidies (which will disproportionately affect the poor, the sick and the elderly) will help to pay for their tax cuts. A good name for this repeal of the Affordable Care Act would be the “American Health Scam Act.”
Vernon Greene, Oakland
Shameful vote
It’s obscene that a group of wealthy, privileged legislators who enjoy the best of health care, as a benefit, could cavalierly vote to replace a meritorious program like the Affordable Care Act, which needs improvement but basically increased health care access to millions and protected those with pre-existing conditions. And, to think that they voted without sufficient facts at their disposal, putting millions at risk of losing health insurance, is even more shameful.
Celia Menczel, Walnut Creek
Call it ‘Chumpcare’
Unfortunately, millions of President Trump’s supporters actually believed him when he promised to look out for the forgotten people. They believed him when he said his health care plan would cover everyone and be better and cheaper than the Affordable Care Act. Of course, the charlatan’s “Trumpcare” plan does none of these things. Maybe they should call it “Chumpcare.”
Edward Chmelewski, San Francisco
Midterm elections
I am 82 years old and have an increasing sense of futility in our ability to stop the train rushing across Washington and crushing everything most of us believe in. I am trying to avoid the daily barrage of awful news in your paper and on cable television.
But when I opened The Chronicle this morning, the photo of the beaming white faces of those men who appear to be so elated to destroy health care for millions of Americans hit me literally with a pang of nausea. The health care of those men and their families will not be affected, of course. I’m going to keep the photo. It may be the incentive I need to re-energize me for next year’s elections.
Shirley Campbell, Sonora, Tuolumne County
Moral obscenity
The GOP House of Representatives passed a tax cut that they are calling health care. Health care in the U.S. is 17 percent of the economy. The House GOP passed their version of health care without a Congressional Budget Office score. They passed a bill that not many of them read. They passed a bill that will have dire consequences for 24 million Americans. They passed a bill that will reduce Medicaid by 23 percent. They passed a bill that is a moral and intellectual dumpster fire.
They passed a bill that they had seven years to craft. No hearings, no expert testimony, no public input, nothing but ramming it through. President Trump even said to the Australian prime minister after passage of this bill that Australia has better health care then we do. Also, Trump is going against so many of the people that supported him in November. The poor and the elderly will be hammered by this bill if it gets through the Senate. Thousands will die or go bankrupt. Hopefully, the Senate will realize that Americans pay twice as much in health care as countries like Australia, Canada and Sweden and give our citizens universal health care. Jack Krause, Chico
Crazy ideology
The front-page picture of all those well-off white males celebrating their (hopefully) ill-fated attempt to deny health coverage to millions of the less fortunate is a prefect representation of the sociopathic ideology that fuels their selfish fantasies of a world where they have no responsibility to their fellow humans. One could hope that there is some kind of justice awaiting them in the afterlife, but, sadly, that is just another fantasy.
Shorey Chapman, San Francisco