Hey, son. Take a seat. I know that you’re sad about your friends and family who will no longer be able to afford health insurance. Son, this might be hard to hear, but you have to understand: death is just a natural part of the legislative process.
I don’t mean to frighten you, son, and this doesn’t mean you can’t still be sad. Just know this: millions of Americans losing health insurance just happens sometimes. You can’t predict it, and, thanks to lobbying from the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries, you can’t change it.
Making laws is hard, son. Have you heard the expression, “to make an omelette you’ll have to crack a few eggs”? Well, to make a healthcare bill that’s palatable to the ideologically extreme Republican congress, you’re just going to have to uninsure millions of Americans and doom them to death, financial ruin, or even both.
Death happens to all of us, son, and if a Republican legislative agenda speeds it up by a decade or two, well, that’s just how it goes.
Son, let me give you an example of how skyrocketing premiums and the gutting of Medicaid are actually natural and beautiful parts of life. Take your dog Sparky, for example. Let’s say Sparky has some kind of dog cancer. Well, since Sparky’s a dog, he can’t afford the monthly cost of his chemotherapy. It used to be that the government would help Sparky afford his treatment. But now that’s all different.
So what are we going to do, son? Is it up to us, Sparky’s human family, to pay for his care? That’s right, son. It’s not up to us. No one but Sparky should bear the unbelievably high costs of his healthcare. Maybe next time Sparky will think twice before getting dog cancer.
Now imagine Sparky’s a girl dog, or a dog with special needs, or a dog who is over 65 in dog years. All the things these dogs used to rely on, the specific lifesaving care they literally need to survive, is now gone. But that’s all right, son. It’s an eventuality nobody, except the thirteen men who wrote this bill behind closed doors, could have predicted.
As long as the profits are there, son, Sparky’s death won’t be for nothing. With all the money we saved from having to pay for Sparky’s chemotherapy, we can now give tax breaks to rich people. (Chuckles) No, not you and me, son. Yes, we’re rich in a “family love” sense, but the tax cuts only apply to those who are rich in a “more than $250,000 a year” sense.
Exactly, son. Rich people do need the most help.
Now, son, I don’t expect you to understand what I mean when I say “retroactive tax cut on investment income,” but know that investors — that’s right son, the true Americans — will make lots of money.
You see, son, sometimes in life you’re going to be faced with a choice: do you follow the recommendations of the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the AARP, the ACEP, the ACOG, and countless other medical acronyms, or do you cut taxes for the rich like you dreamed of when you were at Young Republican keggers? That’s not an easy choice, son, but life isn’t about making easy choices. It’s about making hard choices, and choosing very, very wrong.
Don’t cry, son. That’ll only make your coughing worse, and your mom and I can’t afford that.