To Your Health: The Republican Senate healthcare bill eliminates Obamacare taxes, winds down the Obamacare expansion of Medicare, and eliminates the legal requirement that people must buy health insurance. Republican leaders released their secretive bill yesterday.
The Senate’s proposal is really a tax cut bill with an ideological edge of “freedom of choice.” The 142-page bill would replace the so-called individual mandate with tax credits to encourage rather than require Americans to buy health insurance.

The bill has yet to be evaluated by the Congressional Budget Office, but like the House version, the Senate law is expected to shed millions of people from the ranks of the insured.
Capital police arrested 43 people who took part in a “die-in” outside the office of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the firebrand Massachusetts Democrat, tweeted, “I’ve read the Republican ‘health care’ bill. This is blood money. They’re paying for tax cuts with American lives.”
The bill needs 50 votes from the floor and four conservatives, including Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, have already announced they won’t vote for the bill as it is. They said in a statement, “It does not appear this draft as written will accomplish the most important promise that we made to Americans: to repeal Obamacare and lower their health care costs.”
Some moderates also are on the fence.
The bill cuts back on subsidies for lower-income people and allows insurance companies to charge older people five times as much as a younger customer for the same insurance.
The Senate law keeps the requirement that adult children may stay on their parents’ policy until age 26. It allows states to edit the list of what Obamacare mandated as “essential” coverage for such things as maternity, pediatric, mental health, and emergency care.
Much Ado: President Trump yesterday used Twitter to kill a rumor he started, also on Twitter, that he may have recorded conversations with fired FBI Director James Comey. Trump tweeted yesterday, “With all of the recently reported electronic surveillance, intercepts, unmasking and illegal leaking of information, I have no idea… …whether there are ‘tapes’ or recordings of my conversations with James Comey, but I did not make, and do not have, any such recordings.”
Of course, there’s always the possibility that, as with anything else, he’s lying. But if he’s telling the truth, it’s a mystery why he left the issue hanging out there for 41 days, damaging only himself. For one thing, his threat that the Comey conversations had been recorded could be used to accuse him of obstruction of justice in the Russian influence inquiries.
The Russia House: The Washington Post reports that President Obama received specific intelligence last August that Russian President Vladimir Putin was behind efforts to sway the American election. The paper reports that, “The intelligence captured Putin’s specific instructions on the operation’s audacious objectives — defeat or at least damage the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, and help elect her opponent, Donald Trump.”
Nation: The man who took an internet rumor seriously and went to a Washington, DC pizza parlor looking for child sex slaves, has been sentenced to four years in prison. Edgar Welch, 29, went to Comet Ping Pong armed with an assault rifle and fired three shots with his assault rifle. He found nothing but pizza. Judge Ketanji Jackson said, “The extent of recklessness in this case is breathtaking. — Comedian Bill Cosby, who’s been accused of sexual assault by 60 women, is planning a speaking tour to warn young people and those in the public eye about phony claims of sexual assault. — Thousands of people attended the funeral yesterday outside Cincinnati for Otto Warmbier, the 22-year-old University of Virginia student returned from a North Korean prison in fatal condition.
Bearish: With 700 bears on the loose, the Interior Department is removing the Yellowstone Grizzly from the endangered species list. When the bear was listed 42 years ago, there were only 150 of them. Interior might allow selective bear hunting outside the park.
Social Engineering: Facebook has overhauled its mission statement, replacing its aim to make the world “more open and connected” with giving people “the power to build community and bring the world closer together.” That just sings, doesn’t it. Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg said, “Today, a lot of society is divided, right, and so it’s pretty clear that just giving people a voice and connecting people isn’t enough. We also have to do work to help bring people closer together.”
A suggestion; get their eyes off the screens.

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