While you should continue to call your Senators and tell them to oppose the House budget resolution that slashes (among other things!) Medicaid and Medicare to pay for more tax-cuts-for-the-rich, I would also recommend calling Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) at 1.202.224.2235, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) at 1.202.224.6665, and Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) at 1.202.224.2523, and reminding them that they all voted against (and argued against) massive Medicaid cuts before, and thus can't justify a vote for massive Medicaid cuts now. As always, don't brook any silliness from your Senators about passing something so we can a better bill in reconciliation -- especially from Sens. McCain, Murkowski, and Collins, who rejected that reasoning by voting against the Senate's health care bill in July. And certainly don't brook any silliness about how the Republicans need to look like they've gotten something done before the midterms. We don't care about that; we only care that our government does right by us, and opposing the House budget is doing right by us.
Meanwhile, as you know, the Trump Administration has ended subsidy payments that help poor working families get health insurance at the Affordable Care Act exchanges -- which will ultimately cause premium prices to rise even more quickly almost as if that were the idea -- so Moms Rising helps you tell your Congressfolk to pass legislation authorizing the funding, and warning them that if they attach poison pill amendments to the legislation, we'll fight them. We're not hostages, after all; we're free people. Of course, President Trump, who's nowhere as stupid as he seems almost as if that were the idea, calls these subsidy payments a "bailout" for health insurance corporations. But you shouldn't feel guilty for supporting them, certainly if you also support a single-payer health insurance system that would obliterate the whole issue of "bailouts for insurers," but also if you've noticed that Republicans would replace the Affordable Care Act with a system that's even more of a bailout for private health insurers. We have to make hard choices sometimes, but we do it, because we're Americans.
Finally, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (or CFPB) just regulations which would protect good Americans from predatory payday lenders, and naturally some Congressfolk already want to repeal the rules. Why do Congressfolk so often take the side of financial predators? Is it because they have campaign cash to donate while most good Americans don't? Shamefully, that's probably what it is -- though of course they won't come out and say that, because even the dimmest Congressbulb knows how that sounds. More likely they'll talk about TEH ONEROUS REGULASHUNZ!!!!! (which, hey, do you like breathable air and drinkable water?) or TEH BIZNIZZIZ DID NOT HAVE ENUFFZ OF TEH SAYZ!!!!! (which, once you read the exceptions to the CFPB's rules, you'll realize is utter bunk), and when those sorties fail, they'll just resort to that old chestnut, IT HURTZ TEH SMALL BIZNIZZIZ!!!!!, though it shouldn't really matter if a financial predator is big or small, should it? Americans for Financial Reform helps you tell your Congressfolk to oppose any effort to roll back the CFPB payday lender rules.
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