Not even finished with his “collusion delusion” victory tour, President Trump is back to trying to screw Americans out of health care.

You might have thought that the health care fight was over when the Republicans failed to repeal Obamacare (but did succeed in repealing the individual mandate in their massive tax cut bill) back in 2017.

But you’d be wrong.

The fight lives on in the form of a case called Texas v. United States in which a number of Republican Attorney Generals banded together to claim that the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional because the individual mandate was repealed.

Not many legal scholars agree with them, because there is a well-established principle in constitutional law that if part of a law is found unconstitutional, all of the remaining parts of the law that are not explicitly unconstitutional should remain in force. This principle is well known.

Trump has now ordered his Justice Department not to defend the Affordable Care Act as it winds its way through the federal court system.

When confronted about this Trump offered this assurance: the “Republicans will soon be known as the party of health care,” then adding “you just watch.”

No!
No!
No!
No!
No!

It’s a lie!
It’s a contemptible lie!
It’s a motherfucking lie!

The Republicans will never be known as the party of healthcare. We know this because we actually have been watching.

As I (and other commentators) have repeatedly explained, the individual mandate was their idea. That was their healthcare plan, which Mitt Romney (then the Governor of Massachusetts) pioneered in 2006. The Affordable Care Act built off of this model.

The Affordable Care Act was enacted in 2010. The Republicans have had nine years to prove that they have a viable idea for how to replace it.

They don’t.

Their idea is to return to the days of the “free market” where there are no controls whatsoever on the prices of drugs or medical devices, where health insurers can charge whatever they want, where people with preexisting conditions can be prevented from buying health insurance, and where more Americans go bankrupt because of health care bills than for any other reason.

Oh, and to score some political points with their base.

It’s that base that would get screwed more than anybody else by the repeal of the Affordable Care Act.

This is the same administration whose President promised repeatedly that he would never cut Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security, and whose every submitted budget has proposed cutting Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security.

It’s a lie!
It’s a contemptible lie!
It’s a motherfucking lie!

Trump’s supporters wonder why progressives are so adamantly opposed to their man. How about because he’s a motherfucking liar? A liar like no other. Oh, and also a malignant narcissist.

This will all have consequences when Trump is finally out of office, and Republicans find that where there were people who were willing to work with their side, there is now just undying hardcore opposition. This country is truly heading for permanent bifurcation.