A quick note on language and U.S. health care: "TrumpCare" is a TERRIBLE name for the Republican Party's health care "plan" (which at best will deprive 15-20 million Americans of functional health care, or even 26 million, and at worst end the individual health insurance market altogether). Please don't use it. The shorthand has to be "RepubliCare".
Donald Trump doesn't know or care about health care legislation -- RepubliCare is a creation of the Republican Party. Which doesn't care about it either, except the fact that it'll repeal the tax increases on the rich that Obama's Affordable Care Act put in place. Trump is a figurehead, and one who might be gone in a couple years anyway. The party that made him powerful is the toxicity's source, and it's high time they started being called on it.
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When I posted the above on Facebook, I got a lot of support, but some inclination to offer alternative names. Unfortunately, as lovely as individual opinions are in almost any context, politics rewards unified messages, and all the alternatives, while better than "TrumpCare", are worse than "RepubliCare":
* "GOPCare" doesn't reach low-information voters who haven't assimilated that "GOP" equals "Republican" (and you should never overestimate the information level of the average voter).
* "RyanCare" doesn't reach anyone who doesn't know you mean Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan; only about 78% of Americans express an opinion about him, and given that around 25% of polled Americans will express support of bombing imaginary countries, there's no reason to assume more than about half of voters know who he is ... even before we get to "Ryan" having many other possible referents (it's a common name). Plus, Paul Ryan, though more substantive in his zombie-eyed granny starving than Donald Trump is, remains a symptom: the Republican Party would be pursuing a largely identical agenda if Ryan had never left his male modeling career.
* "AffluCare" and "WealthCare" are both genuinely clever, but completely fail to lay accurate blame. Millions of rich Americans think the Republican party's health care plan is asinine or flat-out evil. Millions of poor Republicans, on the other hand -- including ones themselves dependent on ObamaCare -- voted for this shit.
The name "ObamaCare" was a Republican invention, designed to sink the Affordable Care Act. In practice, however, it's been a gift to the legislation: despite an incompetent Democratic Party's refusal to loudly defend it in the years since its creation, the ACA has grown in popularity to honor the increasingly popular departed president it's named after.
The gift activists are giving the Republicans, if they successfully assign their plan the name "TrumpCare", is similar by a different direction. By associating the plan with an unpopular individual, they hope to soil the plan ... but allow the party behind to escape scot-free as soon as they change leaders. The Republican Party's endless attacks and unanimous No votes and unanimous filibusters on the Affordable Care Act began before the law was even proposed, let alone before Donald Trump was taken seriously. Their stench should not be allowed to leave so easily.
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