When you stand behind me at a cashier and I pay in actual paper money rather than plastic be ready to wait as I take all the paper change I am given and place the money, by denomination and then within the denomination by serial number in order. I do it without thinking and without caring what anyone else says about it. When I have the money in my wallet just the way I like it to be, I leave and if you were behind me, you wait.
I mention all that as I continue to seethe in anger at the 'repeal and reform' effort perpetrated last week in the House of Representatives by (217 members of ) the Republican party. I think we're still waiting for the Congressional Budget Office to 'score' it but failed VP candidate Paul Ryan, the current Speaker of the House, couldn't wait for that process (House is on recess, again; I truly wish someone would give the house Ritalin as their current insurance covers it) as he rushed off to do whatever it was he felt needed doing back home.
I suspect talking to his constituents about what he did to them while he was in Dodge City won't be high on his list. Not that he'll be lacking company as a coward on that count. I would imagine just the conversation on how pre-existing conditions are 'covered' would last for days even though an honest answer would take just seconds.
Lots of people will be surprised, if not stunned, to discover they've traded a walk-on part in the war for a lead role in a cage when it comes to the American Health Care Act, AHCA, that like many I will always call Trumpcare so that the Dorito Dictator is remembered for something.
Among the many sub-groups of voters that Bigly Little Hands did well with this past November were veterans (not this one but plenty of others as it turned out) so it's only fitting they, too, should be unhappily surprised at what he did with their trust (and vote).
People prefer a problem that's familiar to a solution that is not. We saw that almost a decade ago as the nation argued over something many other nations already have, universal health care (even alphabetized, just the way I like things). So it's not unusual that there would be so much struggle to improve the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (its real name) which is nowhere near universal health care, except, in all likelihood, we didn't do that (nor was that ever the intent despite protestations to the contrary).
So now we turn our eyes to the Senate where even more scoundrels of all political stripes abide and hope for the impossible while fearing the inevitable as we pray "Don't let us get sick." Amen.
-bill kenny
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