Magicians have always used sleight of hand tricks, often with cards, sometimes with balls under cups. The idea is to have you bet on which cup is hiding the ball after the Magician has rapidly moved the cups around. But the way the trick works is you are never right, because the ball is placed or removed during the raising of the cup, from the back edge near the Magician’s hand.

Mitch McConnell, Senate Majority Leader, has taken the role of Master Magician on the Republican plan to replace Obamacare with WeDon’tCare.

Nothing in the bill is what Mitch and friends would like us to imagine. If you think you pre-existing coverage is protected, you would be wrong in spite of the cup and ball movement.

Because the states are allowed to alter coverages and cut coverages within the program of healthcare.

So, while Mississippi may not be able to charge you more because you have cancer, the state can eliminate the expensive drugs that treat your cancer, or the chemotherapy you need. So your pre-existing cancer is covered, just not your treatment for the cancer.

But deceiving you about your coverage is only the smallest sleight of hand going on in WeDon’tCare healthcare. The next level of sleight of hand in the Republican plan is that WeDon’tCare healthcare is actually a tax cut posing as a healthcare bill. Republicans intend to combine the savings from Medicaid coverage with taxes on the wealthy in Obamacare that will be eliminated to create a trillion dollars as part of an even larger tax cut for the rich.

Now you may think, watching the cups and balls move, that this is literally taking money for healthcare from the poorest Americans and giving to the richest Americans as a tax cut. You would be 100 percent correct. That is exactly what the Republican plan is designed to do. But watch closely, because that still is not the final sleight of hand at play here.

You see, Republicans are not just after destroying Medicaid with a slow starvation by capping federal dollars, Medicaid is just the low hanging fruit. The Republican targets are Social Security and Medicare. But they begin with Medicaid because many of the recipients of Medicaid do not vote…they are children, have mental health or addiction issues, or are very old.

This allows Republicans to claim, as they are right now, that we simply cannot afford Medicaid, it will break us with out-of-control spending. How does that lead to killing Social Security and Medicare? Watch the cup and ball closely.

First, there are those tax cuts. The $3 trillion planned in tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans will significantly increase the deficit, because the Republicans will premise the tax cuts will increase revenue to replace the tax income. It will not. Deficits will grow.

Second, Republicans will feed the U.S. military complex more and more, by constantly telling Americans how much fear we should have and how dangerous our enemies are. The deficit will increase.

Third, Republican have sworn to never increase taxes. So if you are willing to pay a little more to protect your Social Security, Republicans simply cannot let that happen as it would break their solemn pledge.

When the deficits become crippling, and taxes cannot be raised, then Republicans will tell us Social Security and Medicare are Ponzi schemes that we cannot afford and must end. They will point to the increasing costs of these programs in the federal budget.

Now their plan would maybe fail because the public will object. So two other components must exist to accomplish their goals. First, the Gerrymandering of their districts must stay in place, making booting them near impossible. Second, the Supreme Court must be very safely conservative to insure their decisions are not overturned.

Now that is how you play sleight-of-hand where the dealer always wins.

 

Jim Crawford is a retired educator and political enthusiast living here in the Tri-State.