Politics

This Tweet Thread Breaks Down What You Must Do to Try to Stop Trumpcare

June 12th 2017

While it was major news when it passed the House, there's been little press coverage in the days that followed of the Republican bill intended to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA). While the bill seemed to have gotten lost in the constant flood of news about President Donald Trump and Russia, the GOP's Affordable Health Care Act (AHCA) is far from dead.

In fact, the Senate might be trying to get their version of the bill voted on as soon as the end of June. Like the House, they're doing so with almost no public debate on the contents of the bill. But even the House bill was made available to the public for reading, and the Senate has, so far, revealed virtually nothing about what changes they plan on making to the health care system.

With so much at stake, and so little time to change minds, MoveOn.org's Washington policy director Ben Wikler wrote in a Twitter thread exactly why the next few days are so important. He also noted what you can do to make your voice heard and possibly influence your senator.

Congress was deluged with phone calls by angry constituents in the first few months of the Trump administration, particularly when it came time for the House to vote on the AHCA.

But that effort appears to have fallen off somewhat, and Wikler makes it clear that calls to Congress have the best chance of convincing Republicans that their vote in favor of Trumpcare will have consequences.

Finally, Wikler cautions not to call Senate offices of a state you don't live in pretending to be a constituent, as it could cause Congressional offices to assume all calls are fake and disregard them.

At this point, there are a number of Republican senators rumored to be wavering on certain aspects of the bill, and losing even three of the 52 Republicans in the Senate would mean Trumpcare can't pass.

A deluge of phone calls might get any one of these Senators off the fence and into the "no" camp.

However, there are also reports that Republicans are generally united on the structure of the bill and the broad strokes of its policies. Republican senators seem to be confirming this in public statements, as well.

With the GOP having spent months fighting to repeal and replace Obamacare, and with Trump desperate for a legislative accomplishment, the Senate likely will do what they can to agree on minor details and get the bill passed, even if that means doing it in secret, and with little debate.

It looks more and more likely that only constituent phone calls can stop them.

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