Trump Drowns The 'Forgotten Men And Women' In Swamp Water

Trump’s true plan to “drain the swamp” has now turn into transparent: Make the “forgotten men and women” of this country drink swamp water till they choke.

Hurricane sufferers in Puerto Rico are getting unwell and demise from ingesting polluted water. And now, Trump’s lone wolf assault on medical health insurance markets will now make well being care unaffordable to thousands and thousands of the working-class women and men he courted as a candidate.

With a inhabitants of three.five million American voters, 35 % of the Puerto Rico remains to be with out secure ingesting water greater than 3 weeks after Hurricane Maria.

In order to not die of dehydration, Puerto Ricans are actually ingesting swamp water – this is, water from wild rivers and streams polluted with fatal micro organism – inflicting extra Puerto Ricans to get unwell each day.

Even extra stunning, Puerto Ricans are being dispensed ingesting water from the Dorado Groundwater Contamination Site, which used to be indexed as a hazardous waste web page through the Federal Superfund program.

The Environmental Protection Agency says the web page comprises business chemical compounds, together with tetrachlorethylene and trichloroethylene, “which can have serious health impacts including damage to the liver and increasing the risk of cancer.” Drink up, you forgotten women and men.

Does Trump come with Puerto Ricans who’re, in fact, American voters however reside in some of the poorest areas of the rustic, some of the “forgotten men and women” whom he falsely guarantees to assist?

Or as a result of Spanish is their first language and lots of have darker skins than Caucasians, are they now not even price remembering to Trump? Do they deserve second-class remedy to Texans and Floridians with regards to storm aid?

What in regards to the forgotten women and men of say, West Virginia, which gave Trump a 40 % margin over Hillary Clinton in November? The share of working-class whites in West Virginia with out medical health insurance dropped 60 % after Obamacare. Many of them can kiss their well being care good-bye if Trump’s nuclear assault on insurance coverage markets succeeds.

And a nuclear assault at the well being care device is precisely what Trump’s govt orders amounted to. They threaten to smash insurance coverage markets, inflicting thousands and thousands to lose their well being care.

First, Trump unilaterally decreed that the government will withhold cost-sharing subsidies that decrease co-payments and deductibles for low-income Americans. This will take cash out of the wallet of many “forgotten Americans” who get their insurance coverage from ACA exchanges, making well being care unaffordable to them.

Then Trump decreed that he’ll permit the sale of “junk” insurance policies with top deductibles and co-payments, restrictions on pre-existing stipulations, limits on protecting severe stipulations like most cancers, and with very little state law.

Because they quilt so little, those insurance policies is also affordable, however they received’t be there when other folks in fact get unwell.

Keep in thoughts that earlier than the ACA’s insurance coverage necessities, a majority of people that had been compelled to claim chapter as a result of clinical prices in fact had insurance coverage.

It’s like permitting auto makers to promote automobiles with out seat belts, air luggage, headlights, or brakes. They may well be temptingly affordable, however they’d be not going to get you the place you’re going safely.

The result of Trump’s govt orders will be that many younger, wholesome other folks go for “junk” plans, leaving older and sicker Americans to pay for insurance policy which adhere to the ACA’s necessities of offering minimal advantages, getting rid of lifetime caps, and insuring everybody without reference to “pre-existing conditions.”

The outcome can be that most of the insurance policy at the exchanges would cave in, or set their premiums so top that few may manage to pay for them.

As Catherine Rampell wrote in The Washington Post:

“I don’t remember [Trump] promising stadiums of cheering fans that he’d take away protections for pre-existing conditions, increase deductibles, spike premiums, eliminate basic coverage requirements, and more generally destabilize the individual health-insurance market. But that is what he said he’d do on Thursday, when he signed an executive order on health care.”

If the rest just right can come of those petulant and horrific movements through Trump, possibly most of the “forgotten men and women” who voted for him will in spite of everything understand he’s simplest out for himself and his billionaire swamp pals and that every one he provides citizens is poisoned swamp water.

Finally, then, perhaps the cowardly Congressional Republicans who would promote the country out to international adversaries for a tax lower for his or her rich donors will in spite of everything in finding an oz of ethical braveness and take away this bad monster, who threatens the way forward for America and the planet, from the workplace for which he’s so glaringly undeserving.

There’s one possible silver lining to the devastating Puerto Rican disaster: Although Puerto Ricans are American voters, those that are living in Puerto Rico can’t vote in presidential and congressional elections. But those that are living in some of the 50 states can.

Other than New York, most of the biggest concentrations of Puerto Ricans at the mainland are within the swing states of Florida, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia.

If Trump’s forget reasons massive numbers of Puerto Rico’s three.five million other folks to escape to the mainland, they are able to right away vote for president and Congress.  Progressives must paintings with Puerto Rican neighborhood organizations to make certain that each one in all them registers to vote straight away.

There can be one thing sweetly ironic if Puerto Rican migrants to the mainland supplied the margin of victory in 2018 and 2020 to take the Presidency and the vast majority of Congress clear of Trump and his sycophantic allies.

Then the Donald can retire to Mar-a-Lago and drink his personal swamp water from the streams subsequent to his golfing direction.