So the Russians get accused of hacking the U.S. election, and when the new U.S. president meets the Russian president he says: “Hey! I got an idea — let’s sign a cybersecurity agreement!”
And the Russian president says: “Da! You send cybersecurity protocols and information, and we send you ours later!”
And the U.S. president says: “OK! It’s a deal!”
And folks, that’s how a historic cyber-pact was born … or is it AN HISTORIC cyber-security pact, we’ll have to ask those beady-eyed intellectuals over at CNN.
“I’m sure that Vladimir Putin could be of enormous assistance in that effort since he is doing the hacking,” Sen. John McCain said on Face The Nation Sunday.
Sure, there might be some hand-wringing in the U.S. this week since it appears the country is getting the bum’s rush and may be more vulnerable than ever to hackers.
But there’s a bright side to all of this. Administration incompetence may have driven a silver spike into the Republican agenda on health care. We’re not out of the woods, but there are rumblings that Senate leaders may have to do something previously unthinkable on the health care issue: Work with Democrats!
There’s no question that the health care system has to be fixed. It may not exactly be in a death spiral, as critics suggest, but premiums for 2018 are poised to rocket upwards due in large part to all of the uncertainty.
Insurers currently have no idea what 2018 will look like — whether they will be required to provide coverage for the basic problems spelled out in the Affordable Care Act, or whether young, healthy people will drop health insurance without the ACA mandate.
Insurance companies don’t even know, from month-to-month, whether the federal government will continue to pay the subsidies offered in the 2017 plans.
So if it is imploding, guess whose hands are on the detonator?
Sen. Mitch McConnell has a 52-seat Senate majority along with a handy-dandy vice president ready to step in with a tie-breaker. But even within his own party, there are deep ideological differences and trying to pull them all together is like herding cats.
The Los Angeles Times said Monday: “Trump has further complicated McConnell’s task, giving mixed signals about how he wants to proceed.”
First the president wanted to repeal and replace. Then he switched gears and said maybe Obamacare should just be repealed. At one point he called the replacement bill passed by the House “mean” — a week or so after celebrating its passage in a Rose Garden high-five-fest.
Contrary to popular myth, the swamp has not been drained and there are more alligators than ever. But if they’re bickering among themselves maybe they won’t notice the folks who are trying to pick their way ever-so-carefully to the other side.
Image credit: Wikimedia Commons
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