It's like a weight was lifted

[A Black Falcon]

Thanks to the death of all serious current efforts at Republican health care destruction. I wasn't posting here because I was on a short vacation, but I followed what was happening all night a couple of days ago, and it was quite dramatic, and great, when the efforts failed because of Collins and Murkowski's continuing opposition and McCain's dramatic reversal! It was nice to see McConnell give that sad and bitter speech he gave at the end of the night, because his actions came very close to destroying the American health care industry and they still could thanks to the Republican Party's obsession with ruinous health care "reform" that will kill a lot of people, but give the rich some nice tax breaks. It may be more because he hated McConnell's process, his ramrod way of destroying Senate traditions in the name of absolutist winning, than the contents of the bill, but regardless, thanks to McCain those efforts failed and aren't likely to restart until at least September thanks to recesses and such.

And even then it will be hard to resurrect lets-destroy-heathcare, because the budget and debt limit will be pretty serious issues with quickly-approaching deadlines, and they will need to eventually move on to them. Thanks to Trump's idiocy and single-minded obsession with destroying all successes Obama had health care is sure to continue to be in danger, but the immediate threat seems to be passed and it feels great. The ACA needs work and I hope congress can get around to improving the bill, though; the Dems should consider more serious efforts at introducing reforms. They'd probably fail to pass since Dems are a minority, but it's worth the effort if only to get Democratic ideas for how to improve the bill more widely out there.