Get off your fucking ass and save your health care for you and your children...

Opinion: Sorry, folks. GOP's devious strategy for ramming Trumpcare through is working.

By Greg Sargent

We already knew that Senate Republicans were going to try to ram through their health care bill by resorting to a scandalously secretive, absurdly compressed process. But now we have the details: According to the Wall Street Journal, the text of the bill will be released Thursday; the Congressional Budget Office will release a score of the bill next Monday or Tuesday; and the Senate will vote on it next Thursday.

Unfortunately, there are signs this morning that the Republican strategy is already working precisely as intended.

First, let's note that the secrecy adopted by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is explicitly designed to shield the Senate GOP health bill from as much debate and public scrutiny as possible. The text of the bill will be available for all of one week before it is voted upon, after having been drafted in such secrecy that even Republican Senators complained that they were being kept in the dark. There have not been, and apparently will not be, any hearings before the vote.

What's more, lawmakers and the public will have only two or three days to absorb the details and significance of the CBO's conclusions. Given that this will be the most rich and detailed empirical analysis available of the bill's likely impact on tens of millions of people and one-sixth of the U.S. economy, you'd think this document is deserving of extensive consideration in all its complexity.

But this rolling scandal doesn't end there. This compressed schedule is not only designed to limit debate on the bill. As the Journal reports, the vote is being rushed for the express purpose of getting it done before the July 4 recess, because the failure to do so "could open Republican lawmakers up to pressure from constituents," some of whom might be "concerned about losing their health coverage." Thus, the schedule is also explicitly designed to shield lawmakers from public exposure and questioning about the immense human toll the measure they are considering could have - before they vote on it.

What's more, lawmakers and the public will have only two or three days to absorb the details and significance of the CBO's conclusions. Given that this will be the most rich and detailed empirical analysis available of the bill's likely impact on tens of millions of people and one-sixth of the U.S. economy, you'd think this document is deserving of extensive consideration in all its complexity.

But this rolling scandal doesn't end there. This compressed schedule is not only designed to limit debate on the bill. As the Journal reports, the vote is being rushed for the express purpose of getting it done before the July 4 recess, because the failure to do so "could open Republican lawmakers up to pressure from constituents," some of whom might be "concerned about losing their health coverage." Thus, the schedule is also explicitly designed to shield lawmakers from public exposure and questioning about the immense human toll the measure they are considering could have - before they vote on it.

It is possible, of course, that public disapproval of the secrecy of the process and of the bill itself - once we see it - could combine to dissuade a few moderate GOP Senators from voting for the bill, perhaps dooming it. But nonetheless, right now, the Republicans' blanket of secrecy is working. By keeping the public in the dark about their true designs, it is having precisely its desired effect.