Tag: Susan Collins

Part VII: Behind The Curtain

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Part VII: Behind The Curtain

D. S. Mitchell

At the end of Part VI it was January 11th and Donald Trump was holding his first press conference since his Electoral College win. Trump stood to one side of the stage, flanked by Donald Jr 39, Ivanka 35, and Eric 33, listening to his tax attorney, Sheri Dillon explain to the audience of reporters and staff, the changes that were being made to the Trump Organization.

The stage with a center podium was decorated with solemn dark blue drapes and a row of American flags with long gold tassels giving the event a sober tone. On a black shrouded table, to the left of where Dillon stood at the podium, were stacks of manila folders. The stacks were impressively high. Pointing to the stacks of folders, Dillon claimed they were filled with 1000’s of documents proving that Trump was re-arranging his empire to satisfy the growing chorus of critics.

Dillon claimed the Trump “business empire” was “massive”. She emphasized massive several times. A couple of times Dillon tried to draw a correlation between Trump and former Vice President, Nelson Rockefeller as she talked about the changes being made at the Trump Organization. Evidently, she did not know that Rockefeller had released his tax returns and later offered to place his sizeable assets in a blind trust. Neither of which Trump has offered to do.

“The plan” was, according to Dillon, to put the Trump Organization into a trust to be managed by his sons and a long time executive. She emphasized that there would be no more foreign deals, an ethics advisor would be chosen and lastly, Donald Trump would have no involvement in the business. It quickly became clear that Trump was not going to sell his business or put those assets in a blind trust, or release his tax returns.

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Health Care In America

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Health Care In America

D. S. Mitchell

The GOP nicknamed the Affordable Care Act, “ObamaCare” and spent seven plus years condemning the program, and promising to “repeal” the entire act, and  “replace” with some nebulous unspecified improvement.  Remember Trump telling the country’s voters they “will have great health care. Cheaper health care.  Everybody will be covered.” What the GOP Congress has offered, and Trump claims he will sign, is a bill that would gut services, slash Medicaid expansion and strangle insurance subsidies.

It has been made obvious since Trump’s inauguration that this candidate had no plan and his rhetoric was a total and complete fabrication.  In the recent struggle, the repeal forces are re-energizing and narrowing its focus to eliminate at least the most unpopular mandates of the ACA, such as mandating that everyone buy insurance, and companies with 50 or more employees provide employee insurance.  Those two issues, along with the rapidly rising costs, and decreasing policy options in the private marketplace deserve immediate attention.

Republicans have made hay deriding and chastising the Democrats for a less than democratic process during the drafting of the ACA (ObamaCare).  Truthfully, the drafting of the ACA was an example of transparency compared to recent efforts by Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan to bring their repeal and replacement to resolution by passage of a new health care law.

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Thank You ADAPT And All The Resistance Protesters

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Thank You ADAPT And All The Resistance Protesters

D. S. Mitchell

I haven’t written much about health care for awhile, not because I haven’t had plenty to say, but there have been a lot of other people speaking up and saying it probably better than I could, so I let them take the lead. But, now after the Republican attack on health care has been stymied for a short time at least, I think it is time that we thank all the individuals and groups that came together to stop the Repeal and Replace train.

Who could ever forget the images of disabled protesters being pulled from their wheelchairs and zip tied and carted off to jail. Absolutely riveting. Horrific images that labeled the Republican lawmakers as heartless and unresponsive to the needs of the American public.

The protests by the grassroots disability rights organization ADAPT I think were what turned the tide in favor of the protesters. The ADAPT protesters set the stage for the subsequent heroic votes cast by three Republican Senators, John McCain, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski.

In 1974 a non-disabled former nursing home recreational director and several disabled associates formed the Atlantis Community. The mission of the group was to assist disabled persons to escape institutionalization and live in the community at large. On 7/5/1978 a historic protest for wheelchair access to public buses was initiated by the group. The protest took place at a Denver intersection where protesters stopped buses and disabled individuals placed themselves in front and behind the buses and then others would leave their wheelchairs and dramatically crawl up the bus steps to bring attention to their plight.

In 1984 after several years of bus protests, as the group struggled to obtain wheel chair access lifts to Denver city buses, the campaign went national. ADAPT became the designated  arm of the Atlantis group to form protests and civil disobedience. ADAPT became the militant wing of the disability rights movement and is well known for its non-violent direct action with a mission to bring public awareness to the civil rights violations of the disabled.

The group has successfully used Twitter and Facebook to dramatize their issues. ADAPT strategies used so effectively in the health care fight include using civil disobedience as a tool to gain public attention to direct change in laws, policies and services affecting the disabled and those strategies were used effectively to bring attention to the drastic Medicaid cuts proposed under the TrumpCare plan.

Also important to note were the hundreds of thousands of people who marched, went to town halls, visited lawmakers offices, wrote letters, sent emails and faxes and called their congressional representatives. It was each of these people as individuals and as organized groups that stopped the Republicans from erasing health care for a projected 20-30 million people over the next decade.

Thank you. For whatever you did, large or small, your participation in the resistance changed the direction of this callous legislation.

Join the Resistance

Dar