Senate Republicans began making noises Wednesday about working with Democrats to find a path forward to provide health care coverage for Americans.
What a concept.
Of course, it's just noise. After all, their headmaster, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had just lamented what a shame it was that Democrats declined to work with the GOP gang of 13 that was penning the bill in secret - shielded even from their fellow GOP members. One must wonder: Did McConnell mean that if the Dems had knocked on the closed door they would have been welcomed in?
Fat chance.
But what's really funny is the tepid reaction this bill is getting now from almost everyone. No wonder McConnell had to delay the vote: Even some among the gang of 13 are uncertain about it, and one - Ted Cruz - says he simply won't support it, as written.
The deliberations of the gang of 13 were apparently so secret that our own Tennessee Republican senator, Lamar Alexander, was among the 13 members but he didn't draw attention to it and few Tennesseans knew it. Even in his news release last Friday after the "draft" of the bill was made public, he said, "I'm going to continue to review this draft. I'm going to see what it costs when the Congressional Budget Office gives its report. "
The following Monday, a new Alexander news release stated, in part: "I'm encouraged that [the] CBO says premiums would begin to fall under this bill starting in 2020 . It's important to remember that the alternative to this bill is current law that leaves 162,000 Tennesseans who make less than $12,000 a year without aid to buy insurance, and as many as 350,000 Tennesseans in the individual market facing the real possibility of having zero insurance options next year."
He makes no mention of the fact that those problems were largely caused by GOP intransigence. And no mention of his participation in the crafting of the new bill. Of course, we would not want to acknowledge being a co-author of a bill that robs from the poor and middle-class to give a tax-cut to the rich, either. Alexander can read polls, too: Four different ones found that this bill is even less popular with Americans than our president.
Even a Fox poll found only 27 percent of us support the bill that would leave 22 million more Americans uninsured in the next decade by repealing Obama's Affordable Care Act and cutting Medicaid by $800 billion, while granting a tax break of about $700 billion to people with incomes of about $250,000 or more. The lowest support, 12 percent, was found by a USA Today poll. Interestingly, that's about the same percentages of people who say they approve of the job Congress is doing right now.
In the Senate, by the way, the five to 17 supporters of this bill - and Alexander is listed as one - keep chanting that more than 40 percent of counties in the country are expected to have only one insurance company option under the ACA next year.
Perhaps the senator during his July 4 break might ask a 55-year-old Chattanoogan making about $50,000 and looking at a $20,000 insurance premium whether it matters to him if there is one insurance company or 20 looking to sell him coverage for 40 percent of his income.
We suspect the reply might be almost as crude as some of Donald Trump's tweets.
The Washington Post lists Sen. Bob Corker's position (along with those of Georgia senators Johnny Isakson and David Perdue) under a heading of "Unknown/unclear" and "vague."
Corker aide Todd Womack danced around the black and white terms of support, oppose or even undecided when we asked straight up.
"We don't know yet 'cause it's not done," he said. "We would have wanted changes to it [the original draft bill.]"
But Womack confirmed a Bloomberg news report that Corker, also a Republican, is now publicly casting doubts on whether a $172 billion tax break for richest Americans should remain part of the GOP health care and tax overhaul.
Bloomberg reported that Corker said keeping intact the Affordable Care Act's 3.8 percent tax on net investment income would enable Republicans to increase subsidies to help low-income people afford coverage.
That would mean the tax cut for the rich would drop from $700 billion to $528 billion. Would that give enough back to keep a fourth of 22 million people insured? So then perhaps only 16.5 million more are uninsured? What's the magic number? How many millions is too many? How many pieces of tax-break silver for the wealthy is a lung or a leg or a life worth?
Americans are speaking pretty clearly. They think health care and insurance should be available and affordable. They don't care what political party colors health care and insurance wear. They don't care what Congress names it.
Americans are coming to understand that this GOP majority Senate and House of Representatives and White House - the ones that pledged to never forget the forgotten again - seem to think the people of this country are so stupid that they don't see when their government is trying to take from them and trying to deceive them.
It worked once or twice - after all, we elected you. But our moms and dads had a maxim for this: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
Every congressional member, sooner or later, has an election day coming.