In my last post I spoke about the Senate health care bill and how they needed to find a way to compel insurance companies to cover people with pre-existing conditions while eliminating the individual mandate to purchase health insurance. This should come as no surprise, but they found their target: Medicaid.

But first, a little background. Life expectancy (ie, the average age when you can expect to die) shot up in the 20th century. In 1900 it was 47 years. But 100 years later that number increased by 60% to 75 years. By the 1950s and 1960s it became clear that people were living longer after they retired from work, and often lost health insurance. On July 30, 1965 President Lyndon B. Johnson signed legislation that led to the creation of Medicare.

In addition to the elderly, we found that millions of poorer Americans were locked out of even basic healthcare. The same bill that brought us Medicare also brought us Medicaid.

By 2011 CNS News estimated that over 108,000,000 Americans accessed health care from one or both of these programs. On May 21, 2015 Donald Trump promised not to cut Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid.

Simply put, President Trump’s promise to sign whatever version of the American Health Care Act (AHCA) breaks his previous promise. The House version (HR1628) would, in the next 10 years, cut Medicaid by $880,000,000 and throw 14,000,000 Americans overboard.

We’re still waiting on the numbers on the Senate bill (the Congressional Budget Office should have the numbers early next week), but early analysis shows these numbers won’t be any better.

So why should we care about Medicaid? Fair enough. There are those who honestly believe that poverty is a self inflicted wound and that by providing anything we are encouraging laziness.

But many Americans depend on Medicaid on either end of life. According to their own web page, Medicaid provides health insurance to 35,000,000 children and 35,000,000 elderly.

As a nation we’re much better off providing health care to children. Not treating children for an earache with antibiotics places the child at risk for meningitis or hearing loss. Not vaccinating children places them at risk for a host of dangerous and preventable diseases. Healthy children become healthy adults. They grow up, get jobs, and create wealth that provides for all of us.

On the other hand, there is little downside to ignoring the elderly (except that they vote in high numbers). Nobody wants to spend the last years of his life in a nursing home, but 60% of nursing home residents rely on Medicaid for their care.

In other words, funding Medicaid does two things: it makes our children less dependent on needing further treatment and it insures our elderly poor aren’t found days after their death or don’t die on park benches.

Then again, believe President Trump’s promises at your own risk.

When I began the Trump Chronicles last November I hoped to chronicle his Presidency. Frankly there’s so much drama it’s hard to keep up. I never thought I’d be able to keep up with the President’s tweets for two reasons: I don’t have a twitter account, and unlike the President I have a full time job.

But I was driving home from work this afternoon listening to the news and knew I needed to blog on the state of legislation on health care. Since its inception in 2010 the Republican Party has made repeal of the Affordable Care Act a priority. At every opportunity they’ve attempted to sabotage it. Despite their best efforts, the ACA continues to enjoy popularity.

And despite the will of the American people, the GOP continue to insist on a mandate to repeal and replace.

In May the House of Representatives passed HR 1628 and frankly we found much of it horrifying. Even the President called it mean and suggested the final plan as generous, kind, with heart.

Previous to the Affordable Care Act, insurance companies could pick and choose who they cover. They could deny coverage for someone with a pre-existing condition. And to be fair, that makes sense. If you’re an insurance company you don’t want someone to live without health coverage in their young and healthy years, only to demand coverage after being diagnosed with cancer, diabetes, or dementia. But it also meant that if you had something as simple as sleep apnea, and could not get insurance from your employer, you were out of luck.

The Affordable Care Act recognized this and mandated coverage even if you’re young and healthy. It’s much the same as requiring you to have car insurance even if you’re a safe driver. But this health care mandate led to some of the largest whining among conservatives. Under the banner of “no one can tell me what to do with my money,” they screeched that this diminished the freedom of those who were willing to take their chances. But when Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney authored a health plan with an individual mandate in 2006, he characterized it as a personal responsibility. He went on to say that it was “immoral” for those who can afford health insurance not to buy it.

And yet the GOP demanded the removal of the individual mandate which left them with a problem: how will they pay for this? Well, they went back to their playbook to reward the wealthy and punish the poor. More later.

History buffs like me perked up last week when former FBI director James Comey dropped a reference to British King Henry II (1133-1189) and Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket (1118-1170).

Maine Senator Angus King asked Mr. Comey this question: “You said [Trump] said, ‘I hope you will hold back on [the investigation] of this.’ But when a president of the United States in the Oval Office says something like ‘I hope’ or ‘I suggest’ or ‘would you,’ do you take that as a directive?” Mr. Comey responded: “Yes. Yes, it rings in my ear as kind of, ‘Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?’” Senator King answered: “I was just going to quote that in 1170 [of] Dec. 29 Henry II said, ‘Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?’ And then the next day he was killed. Thomas A Becket. That’s exactly the same situation. We’re thinking along the same lines.”

And so a little background: Henry II was the King of England from 1154 until his death. Thomas Becket was his best friend, and chancellor (being appointed in 1155). In 1162 Becket was named Archbishop of Canterbury (while it was still a Catholic office). Henry assumed his best friend would chose loyalty to him over loyalty to Pope Alexander III.

He was wrong. Becket disagreed with Henry on several occasions which caused great anger in the king. In 1170 Henry famously cried: “Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?” Four of those present interpreted this as a directive to kill Becket. On December 29, 1170 they killed Becket.

Mr. Comey no doubt used this image to interpret his conversation with President Trump on February 14th. By all accounts Mr. Trump asked Attorney General Jeff Sessions and aide Jared Kushner to leave the room, and then said this to Mr. Comey: “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.”

Mr. Comey did not see this as “I hope” but instead as “You will.” The fact that Mr. Comey was later fired makes his case stronger. He felt he was being ordered to stop the investigation in the same way that King Henry’s knights believed they were acting on orders from their king.

As a footnote, Mr. Trump’s son appeared on Fox News and said this: “When he tells you to do something, guess what? There’s no ambiguity in it, there’s no, ‘Hey, I’m hoping.'” (You can read the article in the Washington Post).

I doubt Mr. Comey will become a saint as St. Thomas Becket did, but I loved his reference.

I’m finding it increasingly difficult to hold down a full time job and keep up with the damage caused by President Trump. Last month I wrote about his firing of FBI director James Comey. I had hopes of writing followups but just couldn’t get to it.

Last week I read, along with the rest of us, that President Trump has decided to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement. I’ve been writing this blog post in my head ever since, and I’m determined to post it regardless of the fact that President Trump has continued to create chaos and pain following the recent terrorist attacks in Manchester and London.

Perhaps when I retire I can do this full time, but for now I can’t keep up. Nevertheless I think an article on the Paris Accord still needs to be written.

For the last several decades most of us have recognized that our ongoing burning of fossil fuels harms our planet. We burn coal, natural gas, and oil to create heat. We use that heat to warm our homes and power our transportation. And to be fair, in the last 200 years these fossil fuels have allowed us to take for granted our ability to be warm (or cool, given air conditioning) and travel anywhere on our planet within a few hours.

But in the middle of the 20th Century some scientists began to notice that burning fossil fuels emitted the gas carbon dioxide, or CO2. CO2 is a greenhouse gas which means it “traps” heat that comes to us from the sun. A greenhouse gas allows heat into the atmosphere but prevents it from leaving. Greenhouses are used by botanists who want to grow plants and flowers in cold climates.

But when understood globally, greenhouse gases trap heat in a way that raises the temperature of the entire planet. We’re already seeing record warming of the Artic region that is melting polar ice and we face the reality that this will raise global sea level and flood low lying landmasses. Because climate change is a global reality it needs a global solution.

Last year countries from all over the world gathered and agreed on the Paris Accord. Simply put it meant that all countries would work to limit greenhouse gases.

Since World War II the United States has been called the Leader of the Free World. No longer.

President Trump attempts to play this as a bad deal for the United States. It isn’t. The only thing his move will do is remove us from a seat at the table and marginalize us.

Climate change is real and it’s not too late to for us to turn away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy. But President Trump and others who deny clear science do not protect jobs. They just look like idiots. More later.