A Blog on Politics, Principles, and Uncovering the Narrative

Trump and Republicans Plot to Kill 44,000 Americans

Every year.

And no, I am not making that up. A study by researchers at Harvard made the rather conservative estimate that if having health care saves one life out of every 455, and repealing Obamacare without a workable alternative will kick as many as 20 million people off of health insurance, then the death toll on an annual basis will come out to 43,956 people.

Remember the lifelong conservative who stood up before Paul Ryan and told him, point blank, that Obamacare saved his life? He’s just one example. This is not a theory. These are actual people living, and under the Republican plan, dying.

It’s not as if Trump and Ryan are loading guns or getting killer drones ready, but if their actions result in the deaths of that many people a year, the drones might be a more merciful killing.

Is it really defensible if you kill people with a pen instead of with an airplane, especially if it is equivalent to 15 times the death toll of 9/11 on a yearly basis?

If you think paying for health insurance hurts, try not doing it.

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4 Comments

  1. Troy

    We’re all conservative — got mine, screw you — in this department to some extent, in that we prioritize our own wants over many millions of others’ needs.

    PPACA is somewhat redistributionary in that the subsidies $100B+/yr — and Medicaid expansion for the marginally poor ($60B/yr now and increasing to $100B/yr later, until it is repealed by the conservatives at least) — are being paid by taxes on wealthier people.

    The top 5% paid over $700B in federal income taxes ( 2013 data) so this ~$200B/yr of charity is a large chunk of their tax burden.

    And boy do they hate that, this enforced charity.

    Conservatives seem to believe the private sector economy is a magic machine that makes everyone rich, and if you don’t get rich too bad you aren’t trying hard enough.

    But this poppycock is not the truth of the matter, the more rich we get the more poor we have, as the rich pull their incomes largely FROM the poor, via economic rents in housing, healthcare, finance and other high-profit sectors.

    Without redistribution back into the working paycheck economy, we’ll be heading straight to Brazil-like high-Gini / high poverty conditions.

    Which is what the conservatives want apparently. Got mine screw you.

    • Luis

      Very much so. Private industry will not provide health care benefits, nor will they pay workers enough for health care; then essentially the same class of people decides they won’t pay via government health care. So, essentially, workers get paid less and less and are denied health care.

      Because they’re losers.

    • Luis

      Another thought: the top 5% feel that a few percent more on top of their already very-low taxes is more important than 44,000 Americans dying each year.

      Because, America First.

  2. Troy

    The top 5% — incomes $180,000 and above, have a $3.1T AGI, so $200B taxation for PPACA on that is around 6% extra tax burden.

    The top 1 – 5% — 5.5M households — make $1.4T AGI so they’re notionally on the hook for ~40% of the PPACA taxes, ~$100B; this is $20,000 of tax burden per household making between $180,000 and $430,000.

    This is the cost of leasing 2 or 3 really nice luxury cars, or a very nice family vacation somewhere.

    Rich people didn’t get rich being nice people. Jesus had something to say about them of course.

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