We were warned. What our founders feared is happening

A condensed and update version of this can be found in a later blog to be posted in late May or June:  Trump and the GOP congress are what Madison warned us about

From the Federalist papers:

“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”

― James Madison, Federalist Papers

What we are witnessing now is the very thing  founding father Madison warned our new country about.  The separation of powers to protect us from tyrants is being corrupted now.
The writers of our constitution tried to establish a form of government that would make it difficult for a tyrant to take control of our country. They divided  the power centers of government into three, executive, legislative, and judicial, each with a check on the other. Madison knew there was a way to undermine their checks and balances. What was not yet on the horizon when he wrote this were political parties, but he described them above as “accumulation of all powers in ...the same hands”, " of many or a few." The "few" today is one party in control of all three branches of government with members unwilling to exercise their Constitutional power to check actions of one another.

There are various ways to define a tyrant using 20th and 21st century terms . Madeleine Albright, former Secretary of State, called a form of it fascism in her recent book and op ed pieces.  She identifies a movement on many countries to embrace fascism. She sees President Trump as admiring them, aspiring, and instinctively using similar techniques to gain and to consolidate power, from attacking opposition media, promoting racial and ethnic scapegoats, and demanding a judiciary and law enforcers loyal to him instead of to the rule of law. Former FBI James Comey's bitter book that fires back at the President for firing him, compares Trump to a mob boss he once prosecuted, complete with using loyalty oaths.

Paul Ryan is  leaving Congress.  He is the leader of  the House, one of the legislative branches, the House of Representatives. His leaving  demonstrates if anything is that a legislative check on a president who is a wannabe "strong leader" demanding personal loyalty to him instead of the rule of law has not happened . That the  only party in control of both Houses of Congress and the White House, and working to control the judicial branch, is one, the Republican Party. The GOP is now the Trump party, with adherents willing to excuse any of the President's shortcomings so long as he supports their agenda. Polls show 80% of Republican voters approve of him, unshaken by any reports of immoral behavior in his private life or questionable character traits, or they agree the Mueller probe is just a witch hunt in spite of indictments to date and before a tight lipped Mueller releases his reports of his findings.

Respect of the rule of law is jeopardized. GOP House members believe that law enforcement, the FBI, Justice or the Mueller special counsel, should be staffed by only those loyal to the president to be credible, and that party affiliation of FBI or the Department of Justice leaders and key staff (all Republicans) is not enough. They demand the Department of Justice investigate investigators investigating Trump. Recently they forced the Department of Justice to turn over fired FBI Director James Comey's notes of his meeting with Donald Trump, key to an obstruction of justice case. That is an unprecedented interference by Congress to out evidence of an on-going criminal investigation.

The Senate is a profile in cowardice, like House members afraid of being primaried for being disloyal to the President. With few exceptions, voices raised against Trump by GOP Senators are those who are not standing for election soon or ever. The Senate is currently engaged in fast track approving appointments to the federal judiciary loyal to the president. The suspicion is they are so far refusing to pass legislation to protect  Special Counsel Mueller from the president firing him because they do not want their names to go on record. Their rationale, Trump would veto their bills anyway and they could not imagine Trump would fire Mueller or his boss Rod Rosenstein. Oh really?

There are two other checks to prevent  a breakdown of our form of government. Voters have a chance to do that in November 2018 electing others to Congress.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/president-donald-j-trump-proclaims-may-1-2018-loyalty-day/

The other check is a free press with a wide varieties of opinions and presenting facts as they discover and present evidence of  them. Trump's bias in favor of Fox News, Breitbart, and Sinclair Media , who often convey his message and support him, is hardly a secret. Trump calls reports that paint him in a bad light as "fake news" from "failing" media. Mueller’s investigation will be issuing a report on the Trump campaign’s coordination with the Russians in the 2016 race, followed by reports on financial crimes. Trump is acting like he fears the report will hurt him and has been vigorously attacking the credibility of the Russian connection DOJ investigators and threatening he will fire them. It appears Trump is taking  preemptive measures to destroy the credibility of the FBI as a "deep state" full of partisans against him so that supporters do not take Mueller’s findings as fact. Recently, he tried to punish the owner of the “opposition press”, the Washington Post, by attacking the other business the paper owner has, Amazon , using easily disproved lies.

http://www.newsweek.com/trump-promotes-hannity-episode-describes-mueller-mob-boss-deep-state-crime-883075

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-apos-retail-website-only-031557195.html

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/paul-ryan-warns-if-dems-win-theyll-hold-trump-accountable?cid=sm_fb_maddow

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/06/opinion/sunday/trump-fascism-madeleine-albright.html?smid=fb-share

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/05/trump-tweets-fifth-amazon-attack-in-a-week-hits-washington-post.html

https://www.vox.com/2017/12/29/16830128/amazon-trump-twitter-postal-service-feud
https://nypost.com/2018/04/12/comey-says-trump-reminded-him-of-gambino-mob-boss/

Is Donald Trump considering taking the 5th?

“No person shall….. be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself,..”  The 5th Amendment of the Constitution.

There is speculation on Morning Joe this morning that the game President Trump , Rep. Devin Nunes, and Speaker  Paul Ryan, are playing is to try to damage the FBI so badly, the President could even take the 5th if he is forced to be interviewed by the special prosecutor’s office.

Those who take the 5th only do so at their own peril since that is sometimes believed  by the public as an admission of  guilt. It is a risky move.  However, there are also other risky  moves: firing Special  Prosecutor  Robert  Mueller, for one, and even being interviewed by Mueller is another. By taking the 5th, Donald Trump might even be able to survive impeachment attempts if he can damage the FBI’s credibility enough.

With steps   recently  to  damage and discredit the FBI engineered by the White House, Trump’s  favored media, and loyal members of Congress, taking the 5th makes as much sense as a  strategy of  just  drumming up pretexts to fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Mueller.    I can see how this could  play out.  At the point Donald Trump takes the 5th if he is issued a Grand Jury subpoena,or refuses to be “interviewed” by the Special Counsel Robert Mueller , Mueller could release his report to the public without Trump’s interview/testimony  with enough  credible details that the case will be in the hands of voters in time for the November midterms.  The court of public opinion would become  the jury and vote, throwing the House  into the hands of a Democratic majority..  Trump would then be counting on his core base who will stand by their man as his firewall against a Senate vote to convict.  The House of Representatives can impeach, similar to an indictment, the Senate holds the trial, and  if a vote of two thirds of the Senate convicts, the President is removed from office. While the  GOP is the majority in the House, an impeachment process is likely not to begin, regardless of the Special Counsel’s report..

One  of the strategy  friends of the  Trump administration  have employed  to  damage the FBI’s credibility as been  to gin up  a case of anti Trump text messages between Agent  Peter Strzok and his girlfriend, but Strzok was removed from the investigation last summer. Another strategy is to paint Deputy AG Rod  Rosenstein as "not on his team". The pitch is the Strzok case is evidence every other FBI agent is politically corrupted.  The Nunes memo has been in the process  for some weeks  as another try   to paint  Rosenstein and the FBI as being  so inept , they  relied  solely on the Steele Dossier  in renewing a FISA warrant.  That would the justification for  removing Rosenstein  because of competence  and the FBI would be given another black eye.

If the Trump strategy  has been  try to fire Rod Rosenstein,  the Deputy Attorney General  who has the  power to fire Mueller,  and replacing him with a loyalist,   he may be having second thoughts.   There are enough members of the GOP in the Senate who have let  it be  known that  firing Mueller would lead to impeachment and conviction. Firing Rosenstein would  raise serious alarm bells., The Trump administration and Ryan have piously, deceptively contended that Nunes’ memo has nothing to do with the Russian investigation. Even House Majority Leader Paul Ryan yesterday said he had confidence in Rosenstein and Mueller, while backing up the release of the Nunes memo.

The  current issue before the White House is  how or whether Donald Trump should be “interviewed” by  Special Counsel Robert Mueller, under oath,  or not under oath, or under subpoena before the Grand Jury.  His verbosity, his record of bald face lying,  and lack of understanding of  the difference between punching back and obstruction of justice  has his legal team worrying he will commit perjury.   Mueller’s representatives and the White House are negotiating now when and how he will speak to Mueller. That explains, too,  why   the Trump media hypes  the line that Trump’s legal team  fears  he will walk into a “perjury trap”.  A perjury trap is challengeable because that refers to a  defined disallowed technique interrogators could use to trick him to lie and experienced prosecutors will not go there. Mueller is if anything one of the most experienced prosecutors in the US.

The irony of this is that the FBI and Director James Comey violated FBI rules to announce Hillary Clinton was under investigation for possible criminal abuse of classified documents in her emails. He did it twice, once just ten days before the 2016 election. Her poll numbers dipped and many believe that led to  her defeat.  What has also come to light that whatever Peter Strzok’s feelings about Hillary Clinton, he drafted the memo used by Comey to make those fatal disclosures that resulted in Trump’s win.  If the FBI was so slanted toward the Democrats and they were full of agents also inclined, they certainly did not act like it in 2016. https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/31/politics/strzok-fbi-comey-clinton-letter/index.html

http://time.com/5127815/donald-trump-rod-rosenstein-team/

Paul Ryan should be feeling good; seniors, those over 50, and the vulnerable should not

A version of this was published in the Sky Hi News, January 3, 2018

https://www.skyhinews.com/news/muftic-ryan-must-be-feeling-good-not-so-for-seniors-and-the-vulnerab
le/

.”Paul Ryan, House Majority Leader,  must be feeling good: .His life long quest to become the iimplementor of the Ayn Rand school of political/economic philosophy is half way done with the passage of the tax reduction bill. For his next act he wants is to cut “entitlements”, the social safety net,  Medicare and Medicaid.

The  unpopular tax cut legislation passed and signed by President Trump in December  lopsidedly benefitted the rich and left the middle class with some small change and  with  future generations  paying the interest to bond  holders of  trillion more debt  the “reform” caused. While both houses of Congress are still in the hands of a compliant GOP, Ryan is going to make hay while his sun shines before the 2018 Congressional elections in November, where the House and possibly even the Senate GOP majority is at risk. In so doing, he is  also handing Democrats an issue which will only help them to appeal to usually GOP stalwarts, seniors and about to be seniors.

Ryan’s motivations have been attributed to his  long time love affair with Ayn Rand, a writer of a  1957 seminal book beloved by many a conservative,” Atlas Shrugged.”  Rand, a Russian immigrant, railed against Communist collectivism, and  believed the way for governmental fiscal well-being was based on Paul Ryan is retiring; he will not run again. He was always in pursuit of putting Ayn Rand's philosophy into practice, to prove his ideological hero philosophy worked in practice as well. Rand wrote her books as a response and critique of Russian's form of communism. The old USSR is dead and capitalism won, but capitalism in the US is not even close to Russian communism. It has morphed into a blend of capitalism with one of the most limited social safety nets in the world, but at least it has addressed some of the worst problems the poor and the less abled have faced.

Total laissez faire capitalism has had a result that fed the rich, but not the poor.It was the excesses of the industrial revolution that led to the philosophical rise of communism and the rise of the Soviet communists. Rand then took the extreme opposite tack in her revolt against communism which became the bible of so many of the conservative intellectuals of my early life. Ryan entered Congress with the goal of doing what he could to put Rand into practice via legislation and tax policy. While Catholic Ryan had rejected Rand’s aetheism, he shrugged his shoulders when a 2012 budget he had proposed cut the social safety net to the poor so drastically, the Catholic Bishops wrote …' deficit reduction and fiscal responsibility efforts must protect and not undermine the needs of poor and vulnerable people. (and his budget) ...fails this basic moral test.'” In 2014 he proposed even more dire cuts to the safety net..

However, instead of invoking the Rand philosophy as a reason to cut the safety net and retirees’ benefits, his rationale  now  is that the deficit (he helped enhance) is too  large. On December 6, on a radio talk show he is setting his sights on welfare and seniors and those about to be seniors.  “We're going to have to get back next year at entitlement reform, which is how you tackle the debt and the deficit,.. Frankly, it's the health care entitlements that are the big drivers of our debt, so we spend more time on the health care entitlements “ Already the Children’s Health program has left 9 million kids in jeopardy of losing their insurance because  its renewal is still on the GOP chopping block. The tax reduction legislation he helped engineered could trgger $25 billion from Medicare next year.  Over ten years, thirteen million under retirement age  ($4 million next year) will find health insurance unaffordable.

My conservative friends love Ryan’s approach to cutting welfare. In their mythological world, “ those welfare queens are robbing good American taxpayers and ought to get a job. “ We already had welfare reform in the Bill Clinton era that addressed that “get a job”  issue. .. Who is left getting most of “welfare” now? Kids.   Put them to work ?  Here are some statistics for a reality check: Three-quarters of food stamp recipients are families with children. Of the nutrition programs for the poor (8.7 million recipients), 4.3 million are women with children, 2.2 million with infants. National school lunch programs: 30.5 million kids benefit. “  So what do you want to cut, Speaker Ryan?

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/30/aarp-opposes-senate-tax-bill-calls-medicare-cuts-troubling.html

http://time.com/5043838/republican-tax-bill-deficit-increase/

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/fact-check-democrats-claim-gop-tax-bill-slashes-25b-medicare-n822956

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/12/01/gop-eyes-post-tax-cut-changes-to-welfare-medicare-and-social-security/

.”http://fortune.com/2012/05/02/republicans-and-ayn-rand-a-love-hate-affair/  

https://khn.org/morning-breakout/chip-funding-measure-passes-through-committees-but-its-not-smooth-sailing-ahead-for-bill/

https://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/ryanpoor.asp

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/30/aarp-opposes-senate-tax-bill-calls-medicare-cuts-troubling.html

http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=14247

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/post/what-paul-ryans-budget-actually-cuts--and-by-how-much/2012/03/20/gIQAL43vPS_blog.html

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/apr/1/paul-ryans-final-federal-budget-cuts-5-trillion/ http://www.asu.edu/mpa/Bartels.pdf

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/19/AR2010111906872.html  http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/23/us/cnnheroes-hungry-children/

A reprint of a 4/12/14 Muftic Forum Blog

WHO SPEAKS FOR THE POOR

When Rep. Paul Ryan first proposed weakening the social safety net in a budget proposal in 20,12    ,the Catholic Bishops called it “immoral”.  That was even before Pope Francis reset priorities of the Catholic Church to care about the poor. Ryan’s newest budget passed by the House this month (and DOA in the Senate), reduces food stamps by $125 billion  and restricts access of the near poor to health care by repealing Obamacare and reducing Medicaid.If his first proposal was immoral, the 2014 version  is beyond immoral. Who is speaking for the poor these days?,

 Not The GOP, many of whom oppose even raising the minimum wage, so low now even full time workers live in poverty. Not Republicans who support laws making  it harder for the poor without affordable  and easy access to drivers’ licenses and birth certificates or convenient voting hours to raise their voices .Not the GOP House members including the GOP Colorado Representatives who voted for Ryan budget this month, that would have  cut  food stamps while cutting  taxes for the rich.

Growing  up in Oklahoma in the 1950’s, I  heard many  rationalize opposing government assistance  by blaming  the poor themselves,  opining African Americans  were lazy or undeserving.. Racist attitudes coloring opposition to  welfare still linger into recent times  per  a study of  many public opinion polls reviewed by Arizona State University.

Pres. Johnson’s  War on Poverty  and civil rights legislation were  the reaction  to the injustice and  fueled by the long hot summer riots of the late 1960’s . America learned that the poor could get attention even if they did not have a political voice. But there were also abuses as some gamed the  new welfare system .

 Reality check: Welfare reform in the 1990’s  put more  to work. Those left receiving  food stamps now, per the US Department of Agriculture, are mostly kids  (47 percent are under age 18)and elderly (8%). . Three-quarters of food stamp recipients are families with children.    

 The charity community is  doing what they can , but sometimes the food bank cupboard is bare..Hunger plagues 1 out of 5 kids who do not know where the next meal is coming from and government through school lunch programs and food stamps make up part of the  difference.  

Many of the states with the largest number of poor have  state houses dominated by the GOP yet whose budgets are the most dependent on federal money for social programs. They have  the greatest need and the least will to provide .Leaving   states to use their own resources with federal block grants masking diminished federal contributions to Medicaid, as Ryan’s budget does, would  further divide this country  between the have  and  have nots..

Even the Democratic Party has  focused priorities  on issues supporting the middle class.

The voice of the poor was further overwhelmed by recent Supreme Court decisions that  gave corporations the same right as individuals to contribute political campaigns (Citizen's United), and a recent decision (McCutcheon v FEC) that made it much easier for the wealthy to  spread their  influence around.

So who is left as the strongest voice for the poor? Some in the  faith community and Pope Francis and God bless them.

Heads up, seniors and soon to be seniors. You are about to be screwed by the GOP

Newest polls...note especially the drop in support of seniors. "Trump also lost approval among older voters—47 percent of people age 50 and older supported the president in February, compared to 38 percent now—and among white evangelical Protestants, 61 percent of whom now support the president, down from 78 percent." Pew Poll. Rightly so
since Trump once claimed he would not touch Medicare and Social Security, but he has ignored the tax "reform" legislation, supporting whatever comes out of Congress . . Immediately, though, it cuts billions from Medicare. https://www.vox.com/…/senate-tax-bill-change-federal-health… The House Majority Leader Paul Ryan is planning to propose cuts in 2018 to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. because their tax "reform" bill caused such an increase in debt. https://www.salon.com/…/paul-ryan-aims-for-medicare-medica…/

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-apos-approval-rating-shows-120002462.html?.tsrc=fauxdal

http://theweek.com/articles/743367/dont-fall-scam-destroy-medicare-social-security?utm_campaign=newsletter&utm_source=afternoon&utm_medium=12_17_17-art

https://www.fool.com/amp/retirement/2017/12/16/more-retirees-than-ever-are-filing-for-bankruptcy.aspx

Speaker Ryan is living his immoral dreams

Paul Ryan must be feeling good: he passed out of the House a budget that gave tax cuts to the rich while gutting Medicare and Medicaid. Speaker Ryan had another House victory: he passed from the House an Obamacare repeal/replace bill that left 30 million without affordable health insurance. His first dream to cut welfare that came to public attention was in 2012. Catholic bishops called the budget "immoral". From my blog and published column Aug. 29, 2012
" "The Catholic bishops passed judgment on the Ryan budget. Wrote the Bishops, …' deficit reduction and fiscal responsibility efforts must protect and not undermine the needs of poor and vulnerable people. The proposed cuts to programs in the budget reconciliation fail this basic moral test.'
Some believe drastic cuts to the safety net are, to the contrary, a moral act because we are doing recipients a favor by keeping them from being dependent on government. So who are they doing such a favor? Mostly kids and the elderly. It is not the adults such policies impact the most. It is the kids who benefit from “welfare.” Three-quarters of food stamp recipients are families with children. Of the nutrition programs for the poor (8.7 million recipients), 4.3 million are women with children, 2.2 million with infants. National school lunch programs: 30.5 million kids benefit. Children's health programs (CHIP) keep them healthy enough to go to school and Head Start gets them ready to enter first grade. Ryan would cut these programs deeply, guaranteeing they will not have good nutrition and early education needed, or to be prepared to qualify for jobs later"

Note: CHIP was not refunded in 2018 but attempts are being made to save it: https://khn.org/morning-breakout/chip-funding-measure-passes-through-committees-but-its-not-smooth-sailing-ahead-for-bill/

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/10/5/1704360/-House-passes-4-2-trillion-budget-sets-up-tax-cuts-for-the-rich-and-guts-Medicare-Medicaid?detail=facebook

http://thehill.com/policy/finance/354028-house-passes-budget-paving-way-for-tax-reform

The GOP backed Trumpcare bills: like a fat kid taking candy from a baby

A version of this appeared in all editions of the Sky Hi News, June 28, 2017

If you agree with Donald Trump the House Trumpcare bill was mean, the Senate version is even meaner. The GOP Congress bills are  as moral as  the fat kid taking candy from a  baby.

The GOP's sales pitch: These bills are ""patient centered". What they really  are is taxpayer centered, a way to give $600 billion    tax relief to upper income and medical providers paid for by  taking away quality affordable insurance from 22 million (14 million in 2018) middle income and the poor and defenseless  by 2026  The difference is deficit reductions. Timing of the worst impact is after the 2020 election cycle to avoid the wrath of voters who will personally  feel the pain then. Sneaky of them.

The Senate Trumpcare  bill cuts  $34 billion more  deeply  into Medicaid  in removing  expansion and cutting  traditional Medicaid than the House bill's $800 billion slash. To pay for over  a $600 billion tax relief to the wealthy and some medical providers,  the GOP Congress bills take  money for  health care and insurance benefits  from those who  need it the most. Medicaid is the  prime health care safety net:   75 million, or 20% of Americans, are on Medicaid now; 39% of those on Medicaid are kids.The national average is 65% of nursing home residents are on Medicaid.  Nearly half the baby deliveries  in this country are covered by Medicaid. There are 350,000 Coloradans on Medicaid , some whose insurance could  be put in jeopardy .Most rural health hospitals  depend  heavily  on paying patients on Medicaid to cover  costs. This has serious implications for both Summit and Grand county health providers and facilities.

For those not on Medicaid,  patients are getting baited and switched. Secretary of HHS, Tom Price on Sunday talk makes a pitch the GOP Trumpcare bills will be patient centered because patients  can choose the kind of insurance they want. : The 22 million losing their insurance will have no choice of anything. Price  claims consumers will  get lower premiums. How? They bait patients  with lower premiums and switch to them to plans without  some  they required essential benefits but could not afford to include  in their  plan  . Between 2018 to 2020 premiums will rise 20% but there after 2020 falling 20% because the benefits will be cut so much,. This applies to all insurance, including employer insurance.  The logic is similar to if you just paid for the brown bag and small fries without the  usual hamburger,  the cost of a fast food lunch would certainly go down. After 2020, forget the hamburger .

Depending on what box you check for  coverage of  once included essential benefits could mean  you gamble either you or anyone in your family in the future would  not have cancer or get addicted to drugs or end up in the ER,  and you can pay full price  for your annual physical and cancer screenings and prescription drugs.

Another GOP screw to patients  is to restore the lifetime cap on coverage . In the middle of cancer treatments, you could run out of insurance.  GOP's  alleged  coverage for pre-existing  conditions would be meaningless if you do not have paid  for chemo  drug coverage and other benefits.. Older citizens between ages to 65 can be charged 5 times more than  the younger.

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Additional comments:

Let the Senators' votes be registered just as the House members have theirs published already.  Then there should be no question then where Colorado Senator Cory Gardner stands in the Trumpcare bills.  The most important question any pollster can ask of voters is does X candidate  or the party care about me. The GOP is making it clear they do not care about either you or your relatives or your neighbors who will be hurt with their Trumpcare legislation. They care more about reducing taxes on the wealthy.

What could happen is that the reaction to the hardships this legislation causes and the burden it puts on state budgets and working near poor families,  alternatives such as Medicare for All will gain popularity.  In the meantime, they can  fix the problem with the exchanges by allowing counties without any health insurer or only one participating in the exchanges inmostly rural counties, by giving consumers  the opportunity to buy insurance either through Medicare or the same federal plan to which Congresspeople subscribe. There also should be a push to require drug companies to compete  for Medicare and Medicaid prescription drug business. .

http://time.com/4833408/american-medical-association-mitch-mcconnell-healthcare-bill/

https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/distinctly-catholic/immoral-senate-healthcare-bill
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/22/us/politics/senate-leaders-unveil-bill-to-repeal-the-affordable-care-act.htm

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/06/ahca-senate-bill-preexisting-conditions/531375/

https://www.benefits.gov/benefits/benefit-details/1621

https://assets.aarp.org/rgcenter/il/fs10r_homes.pdf

 www.medicaid-help.org/Eligibility/Colorado

http://khn.org/news/deep-cuts-to-medicaid-put-rural-hospitals-in-the-crosshairs/

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/06/22/533942041/who-wins-who-loses-with-senate-health-care-bill

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2017-06-07/gop-medicaid-cuts-hit-rural-america-hardest-report-finds

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-senate-hidden-20170623-story.html

The hit to both Medicaid expansion added to the Trump budget plans that cut traditional Medicaid, too, come to cutting total Medicaid in half. That observation was made by Steve Rattner on MSNBC June 22,2017

That this is Paul Ryan's dream bill has deep and long history. The last time he tried to cut the safety net, even the Catholic Bishop's called his proposal immoral. From my posting on 4/12/ 2014:

WHO SPEAKS FOR THE POOR

Peggy Noonan' advice to the GOP; she got it right

Highly recommended: Peggy Noonan's column in the Wall Street Journal yesterday.  To the point: it is  not enough to use the word "middle class" over and over; there must be conservative policies that appeal to the middle class.  Neither Marco Rubio or Paul Ryan in recent speeches have done it.
She concluded
"Republicans are now in the habit of editing their views, and they've been in it for 10 years. The Bush White House suppressed dissent; talk radio stars functioned as enforcers; the angrier parts of the base, on the Internet, attempted to silence critical thinkers. Orthodoxy was everything, or orthodoxy as some defined it.
This isn't loyalty, it's lockstep. It has harmed the party's creativity, its ability to think, when now more than ever it has to. Enough"   http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324481204578177800889633078.html?mod=djemEditorialPage_h

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