from. from from. the. hello i'm tom hartman in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture a new study has found that the senate health care bill could kill as many as twenty nine thousand americans every year in this plan this radical plan really be called conservative as richard wolf in just a moment and why did the trumpet ministration really stop funding

a program to fight neo nazis who look into the disturbing possibilities in tonight's political panel with brian pruitt and sam sachs. mitch mcconnell has now delayed a vote on the senate republican health care bill until after the july fourth recess what exactly this means for the future of the so-called better care reconciliation act is at this point unclear but one thing is certain in its current form the senate republican health care bill is a death sentence for tens of thousands of americans every year in fact a new study published in the annals of internal medicine suggests that about twenty eight thousand six hundred more people could die every year in the united states if the senate health care bill becomes law for more of the republican party's murderous health care bill i'm joined now by richard wolffe visiting professor at

the new school co-founder of democracy at work and the author of numerous books including capitalism is crisis deepens as sais on the global economic meltdown professor richard wolffe welcome back sir. thank you glad to be here great having you what kind of ideology sacrifices the lives of tens of thousands of people to give massive tax cuts to the rich how can anybody even dare to call this conservative isn't that isn't that a word that at one time had a good decent name. yeah it's not clear to me what exactly they are conserving here i mean what in the world would possess you to be the only country in the advanced part of the world a wealthy country that is unable and unwilling to do what all the other countries have done with the capacities we have namely to say to every citizen every human being if you get sick for all of the diverse reasons that that can happen to any

one of us we will make sure that you get adequate good health care that you are insured as a matter of your citizenship just like you're insured insured to have a decent public education through high school or to have access to public parks to recreate yourself all of these things all parts of what a decent society would want to have and to conserve they're not doing this they are actually undoing the existing coverage for millions of american people the poorest amongst us especially taking away from them something they have they're not conserving they're destroying you know so you know single payer health care medicare medicaid these were progressive programs put forward by democrats over the years single payer health care you know has has not been realized as

a vision this nation but that's kind of the the liberal version of it the conservative version of health care reform started in one nine hundred seventy two with richard nixon teddy kennedy fought it and went down in flames but it resurfaced in virtually identical form from the heritage foundation as i recall in one nine hundred eighty six that went on to become called romney care mitt romney in massachusetts republican health care program and that was reinvented as obamacare is obamacare actually is arguably the conservative version of health care reform and that's its lineage if that's the case what does that make the senate plan. it makes it a radical undoing of what was a kind of consensus and it's important to make clear what it was it was a consensus that justice medicare provided to everyone over sixty five a basic medical insurance program this could and should be extended to the population as all medicaid was

a halfway measure in that direction and here comes the big part it was to be paid for by a modest tax on the richest people amongst us so as to make it as fair as possible those people particularly in the last forty years have been the ones whose income has gone up the furthest whose wealth has increased the most and whose other taxes have been brought down so it seemed the ultimate fair step what the brain publicans are doing now is going back on that consensus depriving millions of people of medical care and there's only one basic reason why they're doing it and that is to relieve the tiny percentage of our population that was subject to the tax to pay for it from having to pay that tax to reduce the taxes on already

the richest people in order to save them from having to pay what they should have contributed all along and what their counterparts in europe for example do every day and have been doing for decades it's in excusable going backwards in our history rather than forwards. absolutely how does the republican health care plan even make sense from a macro economic point of view last time i checked more people and medical debt means fewer people spending money and thus driving aggregate demand which is what fuels economies. absolutely you're going to impoverish large numbers of people you're going to make them very very vulnerable to any kind of medical adversity which they will not now be able to handle if that bill goes through the economic ramifications of that are in calculable the amount of suffering and what that will

do to families and again on the other side of the ledger what's the positive to reduce taxes for the very richest who already don't spend a good part of what they earn makes no sense they're not going to spend it they're going to send it off into whatever investment plans they have or hoarded as cash or invested abroad so yes the macroeconomic implications of this are as damaging as are the human implications of this for millions of americans again the only winner in the g.o.p. play and are the richest amongst us who will not now have to pay those small tax that they did have to pay under the obama care plan and that's why they are other supporters of the republican party and why the leaders of the republican party are calculating that by getting all of those rich people on their side they

will get more political donations and be able to run the clever campaign it which they tell americans all sorts of things to obscure this immoral and unethical thing they are in the midst of trying to get you know i knew medicare was paid for out of the payroll tax like racial security i didn't realize that medicaid was paid for exclusively or largely with the tax just on rich people i know the expansion of medicaid while the care right. was was funded with a three point eight percent increase in the capital gains tax all i meant was a twenty percent that's occurring ok so this is why the billionaire class basically is pushing the republican politicians that they own to basically you know do something right in the face of their of their constituents and i guess they're just assuming that the billionaires will back them up with millions of dollars in

advertising for their elections or something if they do this yes and that they will be able to tell some sort of story that this has to do with a policy of medical care it's got nothing to do with medical care there are all kinds of problems in any national health insurance you can see that all over the world those problems are the same kind of problems any large institution or large public program has and they are solved over time by the diligent efforts of the people that are involved the richest in america have reached the point where they're not satisfied with being the richest in america but and this slips out occasionally they want to challenge the right of poor people to have a health care that will cover them if they get sick through no fault of their own it is a level of self-serving behavior that ought to make most americans step back and feel as though they don't want to be involved in all of this but the republicans

have thrown their lot into this thing and they're going to carry it through and the hope that the money they get from the people whose taxes they have lowered will give them the resources to fudge the question and hold on the political power amazing as republicans are pushing for this murderous tax cut slash health care bill americans are literally dying increasingly as a result of opiate overdoses does this presence of death in american society tell us anything about capitalism. i think so i think we're seeing that when the decision of capitalists was made particularly back around the one nine hundred seventy s. and eighty's for example to move large amounts of production out of the united states to other countries where they could get away with paying much lower wages to bring waves of immigrants in who can also be made to work at lower wages to

automate to transform production they get rid of jobs and replace them with computers and now with robots all of this transformed the job realities it didn't have to there's plenty of work to be done in america that we can all point to rebuild our cities give us the greening that we desperately need to take care of an aging population we could have put people to work it jobs as interesting or better than what they had before but we didn't what we did is lay them off what we did is lay them and say them in a job but take away the benefits take away the extras take away take away make the job less secure and then we're surprised apparently well if you do teary rate the quality of the job if you take away the money that people have expected to earn including those who studied for years to be prepared for this weekend seemed to be surprised that those people get depressed become dependent on mind altering drugs

legal and illegal commit suicide at new rates get seriously involved in all kinds of escape mechanisms of course they do we have taken a generation of americans told them that they would live better than the generations before them teaching them now and they specially since two thousand and eight that that's not true that their job isn't going to be secure that it isn't going to be well paid and it isn't going to have. good benefits and then expect them somehow what not to react not to feel disappointed to feel betrayed they do and i'm not surprised that in the despair that comes with that we begin to see signs of depression and death all around us and we should see them as symptoms of an economic system that isn't working anymore except for those at the top

who want to buy the political system to keep it going this way this is not acceptable and in the medium not just the long run i don't think the american people will tolerate it this is this is senator wallace's nightmare richard it's always a pleasure and honor to have you on our program thanks so much for dropping by. thanks tom appreciate it thank you i mean as more and more republicans come out against the senate's. bill the senate republican so-called health care bill isn't even going to pass as brand pruitt and sam sacks inside politics bring. guns.

i think the average viewer just after watching a couple of segments understands that we're telling stories in our critics can't tell me you know why because their advertisers won't let them. in order to create change you have to be honest you have to tell the truth marty's able to do that every story is built on going after the back story to what's really happening out there to the american what's happening when a corporation makes a pharmaceutical the chills before when a company in the environmental business ends up polluting a river. causes cancer and other illnesses they put all that health risk all the dangers out to the american public those are stories that we tell every week and you know want their working. for. republicans.

but. my problem with look. i've. thought about that. but. i put themselves on the line. they did accept the reject. so when you want to be president. some want to be rich. to do i believe that's what the three of the people. i'm interested in the long.

as the center republicans move to delay a vote on their murderous health care bill or a tax cut bill is your me choose to choose it call it the white house says it's optimistic that changes will be made but will those changes be real changes or just cosmetic changes designed to push the savagery so far into the future that america won't realize what it does until decades from now let's ask tonight's politics. when they heard that i was politics paddler brian pruitt contributor to red state and sam sax writer co-founder of the district's sentinel and thank you guys both for being with you know if you're going to have a bill in the face of growing dissent in their own ranks senate republicans today delayed a vote on their tax cut for the rich disguised as a health care plan until after the july fourth recess despite the setback white house spokesperson syrupy sanders said the president trump was still optimistic

about his health care agenda as a whole we're continuing to be optimistic the president is committed as he said you know all the members of the administration have said repeatedly to repealing and replacing obamacare working with the senate working with the house making sure we get the best bill for us it's never been about the timeline but about getting the best piece of legislation that helps the most americans. so what happens now guys and let me just add two things to this one there is the associated press is reporting that there are a number of billionaire republican donors who are saying if you guys can't get this three point eight percent tax on my capital gains off my off my tax sheets i'm not going to write another donation check to you they're basically holding the republicans hostage and then my theory on what what they're going to do given that this bill is being passed through reconciliation so can only live for ten years afterwards the c b o the congressional budget office has to score it within a ten year window and you know when reagan redid social security back in one

thousand nine hundred three he wanted to raise the retirement age but he was a smart enough politician to know you can't raise the retirement age and survive politically so security so he pushed it out literally thirty years it's happening right now right now you have to be sixty six to retire another couple of years yet to be sixty seven to retire reagan's you know pushing into the distance he got away with it and it's happening right now my prediction is that they're going to move almost everything outside that ten year window so it won't show up on a c b o score so there's a lot there to unpack and it's critical to pay attention to conservative senators like rand paul ted cruz mike lee they're going to insist on several changes to the senate bill that i think are actually real conservative solutions one of them that i was most excited about was this idea that if if they play and if if a health insurer offers a obama compliant plan they are also allowed to offer americans other

choices but that's what destroyed the whole health care market in iowa that's not true though does not get it so i want to waiver you don't young man who is single should not have to pay to pay for a plan that includes maternity care what do you get a what do you not get about we're all human here we're all in this together but that's your argument for single payer that's not your are that. so that's solved you know health and shall fornia did it the way that obamacare was invision if you saw in health insurance policy in the state of california it asked to meet those ten requirements of obama just obscene and absurd and therefore the and therefore the exchanges work and really really doing well in california should be able to decide in america what year are you going to insure and shine what you're arguing for will kill the program what iowa did was they said you don't have to sell compliant programs and so all these companies came into iowa in the individual market off the obamacare exchanges and said well son we'll sell you a program for half the price of obamacare doesn't cover hospitalization doesn't

cover emergency room visits that's out of pocket but you know it's half the price of obamacare and so the young healthy people signed up for those programs and only sick people signed up for obamacare and the insurance companies are gone broke. brains are you there is insufficient coverage ultimately here the essential benefits packages will no longer be there in the reason why a mail should paper you know reproductive health for a woman is that's how insurance works you spread the risk around if people aren't going to buy opioid treatments until they get suddenly addicted to drugs and they need health insurance and they buy that thing that's going to be way more expensive because we're not spreading the risk around for those sort of procedures same that's how insurance works fundamentally yet but. but the truth is with your argument then we should all have to have half a million dollars in life insurance because you've decided or the government has decided that everybody should have half a million dollars in life insurance i get to choose option like this i i get to choose the kind of insurance the way i want to participate in the market that's

that is the conservative but see that that's just like saying i get to choose whether i wear my seatbelt i get to choose whether i wear a helmet when i drive my motorcycle and what we know is that when people don't wear seatbelts it costs a society when they don't wear helmets it costs society costs you and me through our tax dollars to pay for their stupidity i should be able to choose to shoot heroin you know what that's going to cost society having a bunch of people on sub prime health insurance plans is going to cost society brian i realize going to save some billionaires a little tax what i mean by brian talking point is similar to over here a lot of republicans even alexander acosta the labor secretary today was testifying about the affordable care act in the twenty two million people who lose health insurance and he says well they are going to choose to lose health insurance because we're injecting people the choice really where all the mandates were freeing it up and people now have a choice but those choices that they're going to have aren't going to be choices at all because they're going to be between crummy health insurance plans are going to blow up when they actually need the sort of care or there are people who are on

medicaid and things like that who are just can be shut out of the system completely and to your point tom about pushing things back out of the ten year horizon maybe but we're dealing in i was too young at the time to know what reagan's was dealing with politically but i mean i'm not sure if he was dealing with quite as fervent of a right wing base that wants desires media yet they want to see immediate actions and already you've seen the house freedom caucus come out and say they're going to the senate bill because it doesn't do things quick enough like there would have medicaid in those sort of things and fundamentally this is a tax cut bill as you said but it also will transform medicaid which would be i mean this is a great society legislation and b. if that to me is what republicans are really after is putting a huge greats. if you would start the new deal i'm coming around to the opinion that obamacare was purposely designed to be a trojan horse to fail the american people knowing that then this would set up in ten to twenty years a single payer democrat or that they would not that memo because there just couldn't resist another giant i'm

a widow in france are they. really do you know if people are sick she won't put it in the platform but it's a great theory i mean you know maybe if you're right you know i picked the right party i'm sure the smart guys any out today white house press secretary sean spicer held his first on camera press briefing in more than a week this came after repeated attempts by spicer to stonewall the media by banning cameras from press briefings a practice mainstream media has been completely subservient to despite some vocal opposition from cnn's jim acosta there's no guarantee and. maybe turn the cameras are gone why don't we turn the cameras on when we turn the cameras on i'm sorry that you have to want to turn the cameras on john there in the room the lights are on. if this happens again should the media just turn the cameras on i mean you know the fact that they're not making a bigger fuss about this seems to me like a tragedy i think they can certainly you know we saw up on capitol hill some protesters get taken away and it caused a huge scene political scene i think you could do that and it would be

a huge political the president and the senior staff would pay a huge political price if reporters turn their cameras on and then were either arrested or escorted out of the building the white house the senior staff has the right to say what happens in the press briefing room but the press the members of the white house correspondents' association are going to have to decide whether they're willing to make this kind of big statement to be put in handcuffs and escorted off the white house grounds to try to time for direct action or or i think this is of not an non-aggression at this point i think it's their duty to do it we're seeing each day average citizens go and put their bodies on the line get arrest we saw the folks from and adopt outside mcconnell's office in wheelchairs getting dragged out average citizens are engaging in civil disobedience as forms of resistance to this administration when are members of the elite media and members of congress going to join in on that turn the cameras on get arrested get thrown

out but it goes beyond turning the cameras on to in the white house correspondents' association just getting played on this even if the cameras were on and everything was running the white house press briefings are worthless today sarah huckabee sanders was hosting and she's asked about the google story google find two point seven billion by the e.u. for antitrust that's a big story that's one of the biggest business tech stories of the year something that struck political exactly in the trouble mr should have a choice on what side it was that could play the populace and go yeah we need to break up these trusts or which is good by the way what trump campaign exactly or it could say all of the amazon is going to be in big trouble when i'm president exactly or they could take the tack oh this is us company getting bullied around by those people in europe i'm going to defend them whatever. have something prepared she's asked about it she was out we don't have anything on that we're going to take a question that you don't like that is sam and brian that's that's because she might say something rational reasonable maybe even something that the people in the in the white house kind of gamed out and planned out through and donald trump an

hour later will send out a tweet that blows it up makes him look like a fool let's not forget that that the member the members of the media are competitors and what they think i think they mean to each other with with each other and so they're not getting together and coming up with a strategy to because everybody at the white house is doing their all in one mission right but the members of the press are on their own mission and so until they get together as a group and decide a strategy to deal with this sort of press obstruction that the white house is going to win yeah so it's a herding cats problem just real quickly here we just have a i think about a minute a half the trump administration has stopped the federal funding for this group called life after hate that countered white nationalism and this group has been getting more and more requests for their services because the white nationalists are you know having a good time. could be trump has stopped funding this group because the white national service base my quick response to this is is the trumpet ministration

needs to stop if the obama administration when they were legally you know in power and giving away grants that that should be that obligation should be ok to do trump institutions always had trouble condemning acts of white extremist violence but also remember it was in two thousand and nine that the obama administration released a report department homeland security that said be careful of white nationalist terrorism or the us actually prepared during the bush administration right and they came under pressure by a lot of people by fox news and right wing media and they pulled it they didn't want to deal with the blowback of it so i mean this courage a little bit on both sides i think the obama nutrition learned throughout you know that they needed to start investing. more in this area but so far i mean trump in this race has been completely resistant to saying that this is a problem excellent point sam brown it's great thanks love with you and that's the way it is tonight and don't forget democracy is not a spectator sport get out there get active tag.

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