Trump, Bannon, Priebus, Scaramucci, and all the rest - May 31, 2017

It has been some time since I last made an entry - a month. Last November, as Donald Trump was being elected the 45th president, my soon bride to be (December 31, 2016!) convinced me to give Donald Trump a chance. Complete disclosure: I supported Bernie Sanders but felt that he was unlikely to be elected because I didn't think he had developed the methods to implement the ideas he proposed. Single payer medical, free college tuition, higher taxes on the 1%, overturn Citizens United. After his narrow defeat in the Democratic primaries, I convinced myself to vote for Clinton because I felt that Trump was a far worse evil. I have held little positive feelings for the Clintons from the times of Bill's presidency when the Clinton White House was unable to keep to a daily schedule. While Bill Clinton may be a sharp cookie, the president needs to manage, and Bill's propensity to get down in the weeds on minutiae was also symbolic of his inability to focus. Furthermore, Hillary's first attempt at Health Care reform was very similar to the problems with the ACA: a band-aide measure that patched the existing Health Sick Care System and allowed the waste of Health Care Insurance to continue.

Very simply, in the area of Health Care, I believe that American Health Care is poor in medical quality and very poor in economic quality. I recommend that anyone who wants to understand why US health care is lower in quality than all other OECD countries and more expensive than all other OECD countries should first read "An American Sickness" by Elizabeth Rosenthal. A Harvard Medicine-trained physician, she practiced for ten years and then retired to become a health care reporter for Time Magazine and the New York Times. Her book is full of explanations about physicians and hospitals and insurers all gaming the system to extract what they desire - money - from every American. Simple examples: the insurers who hire physicians to determine what they can get out of paying on a claim; the anesthesiologist who manages four to six nurse anesthetists and thereby bills for 4 to 6 procedures at the same time (and who's patients are then charged double the procedure costs; the hospitals that hire consultants to determine what charges they can safely maximize; the drug companies that "reformulate" a medication to extend the patent protection for 18 months or who make a minor change, such as the "Epi pen" and then raise the cost by many thousands of percent.

But I digress. I did vote for Clinton, and when she lost, I knew America was in for trouble. But I agreed to give our new President a chance. And just over 7 months in, I am very unhappy to conclude that I was right to be apprehensive regarding the new President and his cabinet and hangers-on.

This past week, I was very happy to see Senator John McCain join Senators Murkowski and Collins to vote down in the Senate the so-called "Skinny Repeal" bill that would have sent some kind of Senate bill that every Senator agreed was bad - "A Fraud" said Senator Graham - but which Speaker Paul Ryan would not rule out sending to the president for signing. And which Senator Graham voted for, knowing that Ryan would not rule out sending it up for signature!

But again, I digress. Despite the glee of Obamacare Repeal dying again in the Senate, this week saw the arrival of Anthony Scaramucci as head of White House Communications Director and his successful work at pushing out White House Chief of Staff Rance Priebus. I am no fan of Priebus, but he had at least some history of success predating President Trump. But it was telling that the new Comms Director started off by calling Rance Priebus Rance Penis. Scaramucci's tirade only grew and grew all week, until Thursday night a foul-mouthed telephone call to a New Yorker reporter ended with Priebus' resignation. I might add that Sean Spicer had resigned last week upon hearing about Scaramucci joining the White House. Spicer, despite his poor performance in Trump's tenure, had been a professional communications man before, and evidently knew what was coming.

The real kicker is that President Trump just loves what Scaramucci is doing, because Scaramucci is acting as Trump does, foul mouth and all. And while Scaramucci has promised to tone it down, now that he has gotten what he wanted, I sincerely doubt that point. Furthermore, Ivanaka Trump and Jared Kushner are also happy with Scaramucci's performance. Which just reinforces what I had concluded during that period when I have the President "a chance".

President Trump and family are a cabal of rude, crude, rich New Yorkers who only care about themselves and what they can get out of their current position. President Kennedy said "Ask not what your country can do for you", but that is exactly all that the Trumps are asking. They are intent on making the most hay they can while they can, and they seem to be arrogant enough to think they can get away with it.

We need a few more John McCains and Collins and Murkowskis, to step up and do what is right for America and Americans to resist the cabal of Trumpsters that are using the White House for personal gain. How long?