September 26, 2017

Graham-Cassidy Is Dead

Alex Edelman via ZUMA

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The Graham-Cassidy health care bill is dead:

Senate Republicans, emerging from their weekly policy lunch Tuesday, said they would not move ahead with a vote on the most recent repeal legislation, sponsored by Republican Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

….Graham, however, insisted the effort would be revived later. “We’re coming back at this after taxes,” he said, referring to the tax-cut effort that Republican leaders have pledged to push forward this fall. “We’ll get there,” he added. “We’re going to fulfill our promise.”

Graham is referring to the possibility of writing reconciliation instructions into the FY18 budget that include both tax cuts and health care. With these guys I’d never say never, but it’s hard to believe that Mitch McConnell wants yet another futile fight over Obamacare heading into the midterm elections. His preference is probably to work on passing a base-friendly tax cut and leaving it at that.

Ironically, then, it’s turned out that the biggest threat to Obamacare has never been repeal. It’s been the simple election of a Republican president who’s determined to sabotage it. Donald Trump has dithered over CSR subsidies; cut back the enrollment period; slashed the advertising and outreach budget; and—yes, really—declared that the website will be shut down every Sunday for 12 hours for “maintenance.”

What else can he do? Shutting down the website weekly never would have occurred to me, so I think I just have to admit that Republicans are way better at creative ratfuckery than I am and leave it at that. I have no idea what they’ll come up with next. But I’m sure they’re working hard on it.

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That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

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“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

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