MORNING PETE: Why the Republicans are Trying to Pass a Health Care bill that is Opposed by Almost Everyone

My wife, Therese Mageau, posted this question on her Facebook Page:

Someone please explain to me: Exactly "who" were the Republicans trying to please by passing this health care bill? If hospitals, consumer groups, doctors, AND insurers are against it, who is for it? 

She got two very informative answers. (See below.)

In Rare Unity, Hospitals, Doctors and Insurers Criticize Health Bill

The House’s passage of the bill led to an outcry from the health care industry and consumer groups, which found an uncommon ally in some insurers.

NYTIMES.COM

Comments

From her Facebook Friend, Tom deBoor

Their base. They feared getting primaried from the right and/or that their base would not turn out for an election (2018) where they know the Democratic base will be energized. Also, because of other laws, they needed to pass it not only for the tax cuts it includes but so they can add much larger tax cuts (for their real base). Some may be counting on the Senate to block it (that worked well for the Dems who voted for the carbon tax in 2009) but likely the calculations are even more cynical than that. They include: 
(1) That although 61 percent of Americans currently believe Republicans own health care, hundreds of millions of dollars of dark money + the right wing media machine will be able to convince a majority that any bad things that happen are a result of Obamacare and they need time to fix it and/or the Democrats blocked them from passing all the measures needed to fix it (if their bill fails the Senate, you can also count on them to do everything they can to sabotage Obamacare, as they've been doing since the day it passed).
(2) That the bad effects won't really kick in enough in time to affect the 2018 elections, and may not kick in enough to determine 2020 either.
(3) The trillion dollar tax cut (read bribe) that passing this makes possible will make most of us so happy (directly or indirectly) that we'll decide we don't really give a s*** about the 24 million kicked off health insurance, most of them rural working class Trump zombies who will vote for them anyway, persuaded that somehow their pain is the Dems fault, since that's what they want to believe anyway. Scratch the surface of most Americans these days, and you'll find the struggles they've gone through have made them rather hard and mean, and more than a few believe that people who get sick or who don't have insurance have only themselves to blame. Of course they want pre-existing condition support to protect *themselves* of course, and the Republican bill promises that's still in place, with what sounds like a lot of money ($140 billion) to make it so. They'll only find out it's a mirage when they actually need those protections, at which point they'll just be part of the 20 million that the much larger happy healthy population doesn't give a s*** about. For all of the above reasons, Dems who assume this won't pass the Senate or that if it does, Republicans have signed their death warrant, are foolish. The only way to give the lie to the arguments above is to get out there and stay out there from now through 2018 and beyond. The only thing people find more persuasive than a right wing TV ad (they've got the best of Madison Avenue; we've got the mailroom) and right wing media is a human face in front of them that they know.

From her Facebook Friend, Joy Herr-Cardillo
Two reasons: tax cuts to billionaires and they needed a political win. http://www.philly.com/.../So-this-is-how-liberty-dieswith...

So this is how liberty dies...with Bud Lite and the "Rocky" theme

The monstrosity that is the American Health Care Act…

PHILLY.COM