Cuts to Healthcare Mean Assisted Suicide For Many Trump Supporters

Our newly minted 24 minute media cycle keeps us all on our heels. If you’re like me, you wake up in the morning fully embracing the possibility of nuclear holocaust, ripping satire and an incalculable amount vitriol coming from our President’s mouth. Just weeks ago, the former leader of our nation, Barack H. Obama, had “tapped the Trump tower phones.” Before that 3,000,000 people illegally voted opposing Trump, in a Trump win over Hillary Clinton. There’s a well full of examples I could cite. Lies seem to have weaved themselves so cleanly into our daily political diet, that it’s almost become second nature authenticate even what our eyes clearly see. I maintain, it isn’t one particular untruth that sends the dominoes falling with this administration, but in regards to its crusade against healthcare, the future is folding into a gray.

Assuming that in the next 2 to 3 years the Affordable Healthcare act signed into law by Barack Obama, is repealed and replaced, people will suffer. The GOP’s replacement plan is being championed as a free market blessing, a mighty medical unicorn that undoes the “socialist tyranny” Obamacare represents. The lie they are telling their base, the invigorated masses who stood haughtily in rallies all of over the country, about healthcare reform, is a fib they can’t live with, literally. Repeals of Obamacare will kill the very people who benefit most from its mandates, and only fatten the pockets of the heroes they trusted to make America great again.

Against Interests but not Against the Grain

We’ll never escape the fact that when positioned to decide who would govern America, 63% of white men and 53% of white women voted for Donald Trump.

The 2016 election was said to have been the race for the working class, an appeal to the swath of people past administration’s had forgotten. A portrait was carefully painted over the last four years of a white laboring majority being denied access into the multicultural zion President Obama was laying groundwork for. Journalist Amanda Taub made the concept plain in her recent New York Times editorial arguing, “For generations, working-class whites were doubly blessed: They enjoyed privileged status based on race, as well as the fruits of broad economic growth. White people’s officially privileged status waned over the latter half of the 20th century with the demise of discriminatory practices in, say, university admissions. But rising wages, an expanding social safety net and new educational opportunities helped offset that. Most white adults were wealthier and more successful than their parents, and confident that their children would do better still.”

Hindsight would prove that this sort of racial anxiety isn’t abnormal. History mightily argues that it’s standard. Any threats toward the loss of whiteness/power has repeatedly landed the poor white working class voting-block on the short end of the political stick. In 1619, the Maryland Segregation policy was enacted as the first racially structured social exclusion maneuver. It dynamically changed personal interlockings of white slaves, who up until then observed an unlegislated privilege among their Black counterparts. From then on, no matter how heavy the weight of being suspended on a humiliating ring of a class apparatus, white slaves and indentured servants could feel a sense of comfort knowing that Black people would be doled out the worst treatment possible. A good portion of thinkers have tried to work around this age-old ideology citing economic strain influencing how this segment sees the political process. Some argue that the White working class voting constituency doesn’t condemn itself at all at the ballot. Veteran community organizer, Kirk Noden, put the assertion to test in an editorial this past November offering, “Race is undoubtedly a very important piece of this.

The issue of race is intertwined with the phenomenon of decreased opportunity for white people, scarcity of resources, and the clash of two Americas—weak market and strong market. Immigrants, by and large, are not moving to places like Ohio. In fact, a study a few years ago showed that out of the four US metro areas with the lowest immigration levels, two were in Ohio: Youngstown and Dayton. Immigrants are moving to places that have opportunity, strong local economies. White working-class people in Ohio don’t understand how those economies work, and see immigrants having more opportunity than they do. There is truth to this, in that weak-market cities offer far less opportunity than strong-market cities.” Noden took on the challenge of using an overly homogenous place like Youngstown, Ohio as a case study. It would hold water if Trump hadn’t become the leader of the United States. And in peering into the one coffer of policy that could affect them the most, healthcare, we can see that Noden’s studied block, chose nationalism, racism, and bigotry in exchange for a slow death.

Should this too pass

Barring the high chance that representatives exert political will over repeal, several major blows will be made to insurance patrons everywhere, but we need to digest a sample of the details. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the amount of uninsured Americans under 65 is poised to double as Obamacare goes under. By 2026, 24 million people are projected to lose what insurance they did have. The most daunting avenue this legislation may take us down, is where the elderly are sabotaged. Reporter Danielle Kurtzleben details, “But it wouldn’t work out the same for everyone. Many younger Americans would end up paying less, as would people young and old alike making middle-to-upper-middle incomes, according to the CBO analysis. However, premium costs would hit many low-income adults hard, particularly older low-income adults. A 64-year-old making $26,500 a year would pay around $1,700 in premiums right now. Under the proposed changes, that person would pay $14,600, more than eight times more.” A stronghold of then candidate Donald Trump’s base was rural White Americans aged 60 years old or above, making no more than $25,000 a year. This seasoned group, under the heel  of old age and the many diet and lifestyle based diseases, is looking at going to battle in the doctor’s office with $7,000 less in each of their insurance war chest. And that’s just for starters. The numbers, figures, and estimations all point towards agony. Such agony should be studied and made reference to, the next time we have a charismatic “leader” tapping in to what makes America hate so well. 

Sadly, White America may have voted to cut off its nose to spite its face, and it will hurt.