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“This is the worst bill for women’s health in a generation…Alarm bells should be ringing in every house across America.”―Cecile Richards, President of Planned Parenthood

President Donald Trump promised to provide affordable health insurance for everybody but his health care plan that was narrowly approved by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives last week is just a smokescreen: It’s really a tax cut for wealthy Americans.

The bill Trump is touting, the American Health Care Act, could result in 24 million people losing their insurance by 2026 – and 14 million citizens losing their coverage next year.

I don’t see how this bill puts Americans first, as Trump likes to say. Trump, as always, is long on slogans and short on substance.

Trump promised to repeal President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act and replace it with lower deductibles for all Americans. But in reality, this bill will only bring pain and anguish to millions of Americans while wealthy citizens will receive annual tax cuts of $7 million and corporations, through tax cuts, will be encouraged to offer larger payouts for high-level employees.

It’s what we’ve come to expect from a White House Cabinet of mostly wealthy white men – the wealthiest White House Cabinet in history. This is a White House that is sorely out of touch with working-class Americans, which, of course, includes the millions of rural and suburban low-income Americans who embraced Trump’s unfulfilled promises of a better tomorrow.

Last week, Trump said the job of president is much more complicated than he anticipated. Really? It’s clear that Trump doesn’t have a clue about governing and he may rely heavily on advice from his chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, who reportedly embraces a little known racist novel called “The Camp of the Saints,” a French book about dark-skinned immigrants who invade a white society. The novel focuses on Asians, Africans and Middle Eastern nationals who travel to Europe to create a race war and destroy the “white” Western civilization.

Meanwhile, in real life, Trump’s health care bill is an awful health care plan for women: Women’s right groups argue that the legislation would allow states to discriminate against women. Survivors of sexual or domestic violence, or women suffering from postpartum depression, or women having C-sections, could be categorized as having a pre-existing condition.

“This disastrous legislation once again makes being a woman a pre-existing condition; ‘defunds’ Planned Parenthood; guts maternity coverage; strips 24 million of their health insurance; lets insurance companies charge people with pre-existing conditions exorbitant rates; forces new moms back to work shortly after giving birth; and reduces access to contraception,” Cecile Richards, President of Planned Parenthood, said in a statement.

“The suffering will be widespread, needless and cruel.” Ellie Smeal, President of The Feminist Majority Foundation, said in a statement.

And then there are all the pre-existing conditions that won’t be covered until Trump’s flawed health-care bill, leaving an estimated 52 million American under 65 years old vulnerable. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, here’s the explanation.

“Under current law, health insurance companies can’t refuse to cover you or charge you more just because you have a “pre-existing condition” — that is, a health problem you had before the date that new health coverage starts.

 Here is a partial list of pre-existing conditions that won’t be covered under Trump’s health care plan:

AIDS/HIV, lupus, alcohol abuse/drug abuse with recent treatment, severe mental disorders such as bipolar disorder or an eating disorder, Alzheimer’s/dementia, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia and other inflammatory joint disease, muscular dystrophy, cancer, severe obesity, cerebral palsy, organ transplant, congestive heart failure, paraplegia, coronary artery/heart disease, bypass surgery, paralysis, Crohn’s disease/ulcerative colitis, Parkinson’s disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease/emphysema, pending surgery or hospitalization, diabetes mellitus, pneumocystis pneumonia, epilepsy, pregnancy or expectant parent, hemophilia, sleep apnea, hepatitis C, stroke, kidney disease, renal failure, transsexualism, acne, allergies, anxiety, asthma, basal cell skin cancer (a type of skin cancer that doesn’t tend to spread), depression, ear infections, fractures, high cholesterol, hypertension, incontinence, joint injuries, kidney stones, menstrual irregularities, migraine headaches, being overweight, restless leg syndrome, tonsillitis, urinary tract infections, varicose veins, and vertigo.

“I am going to take care of everybody,” Trump said in a pre-election interview on CBS’ 60 Minutes. “Everybody’s going to be taken care of much better than they’re taken care of now.”

More slogans. More rhetoric. More lies.

What do you think?

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