Paul Ryan introduces the GOP Obamacare replacement
Sometimes Saturday
My friend Rachel Kranz sent along a piece of doggerel about the GOP replacement plan for Obamacare, a.k.a. Ryancare. Or Trumpcare. Or, as the poem puts it, RIP.
We don’t know yet if reports of its death are exaggerated but, for the 24 million that may stand to lose health insurance, there are hopeful signs that the AHCA is going down. Rachel says she owes the first two lines to a Deborah May Newell Facebook post. She also notes that the predicted death toll from repealing Obamacare is 24,000 (one study puts the figure as high as 43,000), but the number wouldn’t scan. 20,000 get across the same point:
The Republican Insurance Plan
By Rachel Kranz
The Republican Insurance Plan
A.k.a. RIP
Will not protect the Rights of Man,
Nor fill the Boston Bay with Tea,
Nor help us in our swift Pursuit
Of Happiness, or Property
(Except the upper one percent
Whose tax breaks are emolument
For those whose gifts were not found meet
To justify a Cabinet seat)—
The Republican Insurance Plan
A.K.A. RIP
Will serve the great god Than-
Atos with merriment and glee,
As profits in a fever rise
Pharmaceutically–
(With 20,000 yearly deaths
Of those who with their dying breaths
Shall sing the praise of Fountainhead
And Ryan’s wish to have them dead.)
The Republican Insurance Plan
A.K.A. RIP
Will do the very best it can
To ever guarantee
The market’s health, Investors’ wealth
Constitutionally—
(While old and young compete to die
Before their premiums get too high,
Concluding from the Congress’ strife:
Ah, no entitlement to life!)
