Whats the rush on repealing Obamacare? Its true President Trump did promise speediness during the campaign. (Youre going to end up with great health care for a fraction of the price and thats gonna take place immediately after we go in. OK? Immediately. Fast. Quick.) But that was before he discovered that health care was complicated.

This sort of thinking will send us back to discussions about how our president has no permanent convictions on any subject except the inferiority of Arnold Schwarzenegger as a reality show host. Lets move on. We have a national disaster to watch unrolling.

Under orders to do something immediatelyfastquick, the House has begun to race through what Republican leaders hope will be Obamacare repeal and replacement so swift their membership will hardly notice its happening.

They just want to get it out and get it on, grumbled Rep. Frank Pallone, of New Jersey, the leading Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which rejected a proposal to hold the bill until Congress got the requisite estimates on how much the whole thing would cost and how many people it would leave uncovered. Details shmetails.

We can act now or we can keep fiddling around and squander this opportunity to repeal Obamacare, and begin a new chapter of freedom for the American people, said Rep. Kevin Brady, of Texas, the chairman of another committee thats pushing the bill through at lightning speed.

This offers us our annual opportunity to recall when Janis Joplin sang that freedoms just another word for nothing left to lose.

The GOP replacement bill is very big on freedom.

Theres freedom for wealthier Americans not to pay taxes that help subsidize health insurance for their low-income fellow citizens. Freedom for those who can afford coverage to refuse to buy it. Freedom for insurance companies to hike their prices for middle-aged customers. Freedom for the states to stop providing Medicaid-backed health insurance for maternity care, when nearly half of all the births in the country are currently covered by Medicaid.

It gives power back to the insurance companies to discriminate against womens health care, which is more expensive, said Sen. Patty Murray, of Washington.

Our new health and human services secretary, Tom Price, is very big on the freedom of doctor-patient relations. Price, a surgeon, talks constantly about keeping the government from stepping in. (You need to know that what your doctor is recommending for you is exactly what he or she believes is right for you based upon education and science, not based upon what Washington is telling them he or she must do.)

Unless, of course, the doctor and patient are deciding whether or not she wants to terminate a pregnancy.

Price is a longtime opponent of abortion in all shapes and forms. He twice co-sponsored bills to establish that the Constitution protects the rights of zygotes from the moment of fertilization. That would ban not only abortion but also morning-after pills and, according to some advocates, birth control methods like IUDs.

The Obamacare repeal bill makes it much less attractive for insurance companies to cover abortions in their policies and includes a ban on federal funds for Planned Parenthood. Lately, it seems as if everything the House touches includes a ban on funds for Planned Parenthood. Someday soon you will learn that there was a Planned Parenthood amendment attached to a measure renaming a post office in Nebraska after a recently deceased World War II veteran.

You wouldnt think getting rid of an organization that provides crucial services like breast exams, family planning and checks for cervical cancer would be a major fixture of a health bill. But this is an administration that wants to fight terrorism by defunding the Coast Guard to pay for a wall. What can I tell you?

Planned Parenthood does not get federal funds for abortions, but it does get a lot of money for its other work with underserved poor and rural Americans. Trump has let it be known that hed support the organization if it just stopped providing abortions, period. Planned Parenthood refused, under the theory that women need, um, the freedom to make that choice on their own.

So youve got two sides here, people. One believes all Americans should have the freedom to make their own decisions about their bodies. The other believes all Americans should have the freedom to not have health insurance. You pick. But do it fast.

2017 NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE

Read the original here:

Getting freedom from health - Jackson Hole News&Guide