Health & Human Services -- No Health, No Services

The Senate has confirmed Alex Azar as the new Secretary of Health & Human Services.  Azar is a conservative bureaucrat and former Big Pharma executive at Eli Lilly, where he oversaw a Shkreli-style string of constant price increases for prescription drugs.  An outspoken opponent of Obamacare, Azar has said, "The Affordable Care Act has failed millions of Americans who have lost the plans they liked and the doctors they liked."

Azar's comment reveals a shallow understanding of the ACA, as well as his intention to continue sabotaging the landmark legislation.  Those who "lost plans they liked" (and "millions" is debatable) had cheap-ass, pretend insurance plans without essential coverages.  They may have paid little, but they got even less in return.

What Azar doesn't say is that 20 million Americans gained health coverage through the ACA, far more than had their substandard policies cancelled. 

I am covered under a plan on the ACA exchange.  As a self-employed person, the ACA allows me to have real and affordable health insurance, just like employer-provided, employer-subsidized group plans.  I'm a cancer patient, and without the ACA to help cover the extraordinary costs of treatment (over $360,000 in 2017), I probably wouldn't be writing this.  The ACA is working for me, and for many like me.

Azar, Trump and the GOP can go piss up a rope.  When they keep trying to kill Obamacare, they're in effect trying to kill me.  Pardon me if I get a little touchy about that.

In a related note, the HHS just announced a new "Division of Conscience & Religious Freedom."  Seriously.  It's a in-house cabal of culture warriors dedicated to anti-abortion and anti-LGBT discrimination.  God-squad conservative solutions in search of a problem.   

Azar's HHS:  Shit-coverage health policies, yes.  Obamacare, no.  Unwanted babies, yes.  Rainbow cupcakes, no.  How healthy!  What service!