The United States House of Representatives will, today, vote on a repeal, replace, make a lot worse, really muck up healthcare bill. Both the vote and the healthcare bill itself will be a craptacular mess.

How did this unholy mess make it out of committee and garner enough votes from the different Republican groups like the Tuesday Morning Group and the Freedom Caucus? We have two flyover country congressman to thank for going to President Trump with a last minute $8 billion dollar pre-existing condition fix. Representative Fred Upton of Michigan and Representative Bill Long of Missouri, both Republicans came up with this “fix”.

From ABC.com:

Reps. Billy Long, R-Mo., and Fred Upton, R-Mich., are proposing an amendment to add $8 billion over five years to help subsidize high-risk insurance pools in states that opt out of Affordable Care Act rules in a way that could allow insurers to raise rates on people with pre-existing conditions.

Health insurance coverage for people with pre-existing conditions has been the main sticking point during extended negotiations among Republicans.

Conservative Republicans have insisted on a proposal that would allow states to receive a waiver for Obamacare’s protections for people with pre-existing conditions and instead create a separate high-risk pool. Some moderate Republicans, like Upton, insist that the plan have protections similar to those provided by the ACA.

I may not be as educated as these folks are but, that is not insurance. That is called subsidized care or an entitlement. Let’s call things by their right names, please. I don’t trust Fred Upton (R-MI). Last time that Fred made national news it was to ban the incandescent bulb. Hey Fred, come to my house and pick up the box of mercury laden bulbs we have.

Anyhoo.

Watch this youtube video as CNN’s Jake Tapper sneers his way through the description of how this craptacular mess came to be:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyI5-V0K2gw

Vox.com has its knickers in a twist over the fact that the Congressional Budget Office hasn’t scored the Republican bill yet.

The House of Representatives will vote on the American Health Care Act, the bill to repeal and replace Obamacare, on Thursday in the early afternoon. House Republicans are hurtling toward a vote on a bill that is disliked by most Americans, opposed by nearly every major health care group, and not yet scored by the Congressional Budget Office.

This is an unusual situation, and a puzzling one. Republicans will vote tomorrow for a health care bill without knowing how many people it covers or how much it would cost. They risk setting themselves up for embarrassment when the numbers actually do come out and don’t look good.