Below is what happened on Trump's 33rd day in office. You can find out what damage was done every other day so far on the Saddest Calendar on the Internet.Eighteen hours after the Trump administration revealed its ideal healthcare system and officially asserted its disappointing stance on the whole "Is health care is a universal right?" debate, the House Ways and Means Committee became the first panel to approve the GOP's Obamacare repeal bill at around 4:30 AM this morning. The new health care plan has "cleared its first hurdle," and countless people and organizations are voicing their opposition; most notably, a group that evidently cares a bit more about human life than Paul Ryan and the man tasked with caring about our health, Tom Price. That group includes the American Medical Association and six other major health organizations.In a letter to Congress, the leading medical organizations and hospitals expressed "significant concerns" with the new American Health Care Act. The letter contains the following reasoning:
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With this letter, groups like the Children's Hospital Association and America's Essential Hospitals join the American Medical Association, the largest association of licensed physicians and medical students in the US, and the AARP, who have also rejected the healthcare plan as is. While they believed Obamacare to be imperfect, the AMA considered it to be "a significant improvement on the status quo at the time" in 2010 and find Trump's plan to be "critically flawed."However, White House spokesman Sean Spicer expressed indifference to the growing number of people, groups, and organizations that have voiced their opposition, saying that the Trump administration "would love to have every group on board," but apparently finds support to be relatively insignificant."This isn't about figuring out how many special interests in Washington we can get paid off," Spicer said, as quoted on CNN. "It's about making sure that patients get the best deal, that lowers prices and brings back cost."Spicer's "the best deal" verbiage illustrates how the Trump administration approaches the proposed bill's actions—like rolling back Medicaid expansion and threatening to stop the federal funding of Planned Parenthood—as matters of economics, not of survival.We are very concerned that the draft legislative proposal being considered by the House committees could lead to tremendous instability for those seeking affordable coverage. Furthermore, we are deeply concerned that the proposed Medicaid program restructuring will result in both the loss of coverage for current enrollees as well as cuts to a program that provides health care services for our most vulnerable populations, including children, the elderly and disabled. Additionally, maintaining deep provider reductions while dramatically reducing coverage will reduce our ability to provide essential care to those newly uninsured and those without adequate insurance.