It eliminates a 3.8 percent tax that applied to capital gains, dividend, and interest income for families with $250,000 or more in income ($125,000 for singles). It eliminates a 0.9 percent tax on wage income in excess of $250,000 a year ($200,000 for unmarried people). It eliminates taxes on health insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, and medical device manufacturers.

...in a big-picture sense, you can’t take $600 billion out of health care and use it to finance tax cuts without ending up with worse health care. All the rest is details and footnotes.

Some of those details and footnotes are important. Such as who will be adversely affected the most by this bill. Children. And in particular, Children with disabilities

Even those kids not relying on Medicaid will be hurt by this bill:

Families with children with serious health concerns who aren’t covered under Medicaid still wouldn’t be immune to the plans uglier provisions. A new amendment to the GOP-backed bill would mean that states could push families of many children with disabilities into high-risk pools of insurance applicants — and insurers could legally charge those families much higher premiums because of their child’s pre-existing condition. And the list of health challenges that could lead to paying higher premiums includes multiple sclerosis, congestive heart failure, epilepsy, diabetes, and even asthma.

At least 24 of the Republicans who voted for Paul Ryan's health care bill are now vulnerable in 2018. (I won't affix Donald Trump's name to the bill because not smart enough to write a law let alone one on health care, a subject he knows nothing about and has no reason to care about, since he will be able to afford medical care for himself and his family after he no longer has a desk in the oval office. He's just a puppet trying not to be a loser.)

Democrats are mobilizing to take back the House. From Swing Left, "An online network created to support progressive candidates in Swing Districts and help take back the House in 2018, regardless of where you live."

They passed this bill by just two votes. And 35 Republican representatives from targeted Swing Districts cast critical YES votes. (See the full list below.) Right now, let’s make sure this vote is one they’ll deeply regret. We just set up a way to split a donation to all of the eventual Democratic nominees in these 35 Swing Districts.

2018 elections are a long way off. When Congress passed the Patriot Act without having sufficient time to even read the bill and with no debate, many thought those who voted for it would lose their seats in Congress. It didn't happen.

Before thinking about 2018, and before donating to the Democratic party, I'd like to see Democrats get to work on convincing at least a few Republican Senators to vote against this health bill. Here are some Senators who may be on the fence (if not opposed):

Republicans passed their health care bill through the House on Thursday afternoon without cost or coverage estimates from the Congressional Budget Office — a leap into the legislative dark that many experts view as reckless and irresponsible. They suddenly corralled the votes after making legislative changes this week, and then rammed through the bill with a vote on Thursday.

Republicans in the Senate have a range of views, but it’s far less likely they’ll move as quickly as Ryan did. Republicans can only afford to lose two votes to pass Ryan’s bill through reconciliation. So far, at least four crucial swing votes are already speaking out against the House bill.

If the Senate passes this bill they too will become big losers. And despite what fake news is claiming, Donald Trump will also be a loser.

Loser: Donald Trump

Trump has repeatedly promised a health care bill that will “cover everyone” and take care of people with preexisting conditions. The bill that just passed the House is decidedly not that bill. The things Trump says are currently in the bill — protections for everyone with preexisting conditions, for example — are not in the American Health Care Act. The most recent CBO estimate says that 24 million fewer Americans would have coverage under AHCA. Clearly, not everyone is covered.

Trump has repeated these claims this week and he may well keep repeating these claims about AHCA in the future too. But eventually, if he signs this bill into law, the way AHCA actually works will become clear to the Americans who lose insurance and the Americans with preexisting conditions who suddenly have to pay more for coverage. That will be a rude awakening for the voters who have, for years now, been promised the exact opposite.

This bill cannot be fixed. It needs to be rejected in the Senate. My advice: Before donating to Democrats and thinking about 2018, convince Republican senators not to expend effort on amendments, and focus on convincing the Republican Senators who have already expressed doubts about the bill to vote against it. Only 3 Republicans need to reject the bill for it to fail.

The rich and the young and healthy will like this bill. Everyone else should be appalled.
Republicans can now be crowned with one more ignominious title: Misopedists. They have always been the party willing to throw out protections for the poor, the elderly and the marginalized among us. With this bill, they have now added children to the list. What kind of society throws the welfare of children to the wolves? Not one anyone I know would care to live in.