So, last night what appeared to be a reasonable human being showed up and gave a speech. He has been getting a lot of positive reinforcement so maybe we will see more of that tone and style.
The speech was about goals with some guidance as to strategies. No one expected much more and such a speech was not unreasonable at this time. However, one can draw some conclusions, tentative though they may be. First, it is clear that those of us who have enough and even more than enough are going to end up with more. Second, various tax cuts and schemes, notably the border adjustment, will flow more money to the top. The border adjustment concept and execution, which in design and implementation is quite complex and includes expected currency exchange adjustments, will essentially do the job of a tariff. That is, foreign countries will pay more of our tax bill and we collectively will pay less.
The more and better and cheaper republican health plan will not provide more and will not be better. It might be cheaper because people will be forced to look for far less coverage. The keyword is" access". In other words, if you can afford it it will be out there. The tax credit component will favor the older. People with pre-existing conditions will doubtless be put in a special risk pool. That will require either massive Federal subsidies or exclusion from coverage. All in all it will be a massive step backwards towards people either getting federal subsidies because their healthcare is part of their employment package but not taxed , with the rest getting less healthcare and probably at a higher cost. Medicaid will be shoved down to the states without adequate funding with expected results. I suppose this is a guess on my part but I wouldn't mind betting on it.
One of the more chilling things about what is going on with the Republicans is that Grover Norquist seems to be nearly ecstatic. That generally means that those people who need Government help the most will get less and those who have no need for it will get more
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