Opinion: How many of Trump’s promises does Trumpcare break?

Good morning. I’m Paul Thornton, The Times’ letters editor, and it is Saturday, May 6, 2017, the day after what wasn’t a celebration of Mexico’s independence day. Let’s take a look back at the week in Opinion.

President Trump promised Americans — and especially his supporters — universal healthcare coverage that would be “better” and “cheaper” than what we have under the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare). What passed out of the House on Thursday (and faces, at best, an uncertain future in the Senate) provided neither less expensive healthcare nor anything close to universal coverage, despite what the celebrations at the White House and Capitol Hill might lead you to believe.

On The Times’ op-ed page, political scientist Scott Lemieux sums up the Republicans’ American Health Care Act thus: “In short, Donald Trump’s promise to cover more Americans more cheaply while protecting Medicaid was a grotesque lie.” Lemieux explains:

Precisely because the bill is terrible, voting to pass it will be a political disaster for the Republican Party. The first version of the bill was massively unpopular, and this version won’t do much better. There simply isn’t any public constituency for passing a huge cut to federal healthcare spending, causing millions to lose insurance, and giving the money to the rich. Pelosi was right that the public would like Obamacare more when they found out what was in it, because most of its components were individually popular even when the bill was not. The same isn’t true of Trumpcare — virtually everything in it is unpopular. It will almost certainly cost some blue-state Republican House members their seats in 2018, and it won’t help Trump’s bad approval ratings either.

It’s unlikely that this slapdash and morally monstrous bill will be able to pass the Senate, even in modified form. Unlikely — but not impossible. Perversely, the political hit Republicans will take for going on the record in favor of Trumpcare might make it more likely to pass the Senate. For wavering Republicans, putting the party’s House majority at serious risk and not even getting anything out of it would be the worst-case scenario.

Trumpcare would quite simply be a humanitarian nightmare, resulting in untold avoidable death and suffering for no good reason. At least it’s now obvious — though it should have been obvious long ago — that Trump is not a compassionate populist and that Ryan is not a policy wonk. The fact that Republicans plan to hold a party to celebrate this great “victory” should make great fodder for midterm election attack ads.

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No, the GOP repeal-and-replace bill will not protect people with pre-existing conditions. The Times Editorial Board notes another way in which the American Health Care Act is unacceptable: “According to one estimate, those surcharges could range from $4,000 per year for asthmatics to $17,000 for women seeking maternity coverage to $143,000 for those with a history of metastatic cancer.” L.A. Times

California, home of the Official Resistance, played a big part in passing the GOP’s healthcare bill. It behooves voters in our state to remember the House Republicans from California who voted in favor of Trumpcare (in fact, all of them did). Sacramento Bee

Donald Trump is upset with Amanda Knox. He vocally supported her while she was on trial in a murder case in Italy, she voted for Hillary Clinton, and he thinks she owed him her vote. She calls this kind of reasoning undemocratic and dangerous and says that while she owes Trump her gratitude, she owes her country “civic engagement, careful consideration of issues that affect my fellow citizens, and support for policies that deserve support, even if it makes the president ‘very upset.’ ” L.A. Times

Liberals say “The Handmaid’s Tale” is timely. That says a lot about liberals. Charlotte Allen dismisses the idea that a Bible-misquoting president like Donald Trump will usher in the dystopian theocracy of Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel. But liberals are right about living in a dystopia, Allen says — and it’s one of their own making. L.A. Times

Go ahead and blame UC Berkeley. Everyone else does. Joe Mathews pens a “Dear Berkeley” letter on behalf of all of California: “You — our most distinguished public university and all the people, institutions, and neighborhoods surrounding it — do far more than research and educate. You serve the vital social purpose of being a convenient punching bag for angry people of all manner of ideological preoccupations.” Zócalo Public Square

Reach me: paul.thornton@latimes.com