Treating the Trumpite infestation

Termites did not destroy my house. Neither will Trumpites destroy your democracy.

But they will do damage, and it will be costly.

Termites, and other wood or plant borers like the mountain pine beetle, leave a trail of dust.

The Trumpites who have infested government leave jet trails as they engage their carnal pleasures on our dime, even occasionally doing their jobs. Unfortunately, in almost all cases what they consider their job is to destroy the structural sector of government to which each is assigned.

Consider a new top-level hire to the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. Nancy Beck qualified for that position, based on Trumpite intentions, by having been a lobbyist for the American Chemistry Council, an industry arm that fights regulations of chemicals.

This fits perfectly with the philosophy of EPA administrator Scott Pruitt, who rose to his position via the Trumpite virtue of suing the EPA on behalf of polluters as Oklahoma attorney general.

Former Georgia congressman Tom Price, the Trumpite choice as secretary of Health and Human Services, appeared to be the man who would eviscerate each and every one of those services, starting with the Affordable Care Act.

Unfortunately for him, he was mostly interested in taxpayer-funded jetting to and from family functions.

With Price gone, and with Congress failing to gnaw through legislation to abolish ACA, Trump has announced to those who benefit, "Eat my dust."

We'll see what happens as affected states take Trump to court over the end of subsidies that have kept insurers in the game and have lowered copays and deductibles.

One thing for sure is that Trump's tunnel assault on ACA is wreaking the requisite havoc.

For instance, cutting back on the marketing funds that inform people that Dec. 15 is the deadline for signing up for health coverage or changing one's your policy under ACA.  Another destructive act was to cut the enrollment period in half, from three months to 45 days. More about that shortly.

Meanwhile, though we've been assured that Donald Trump is the smartest man to ever ride an escalator into history:

The Law of Unintended Consequences is playing out with his designs, because he doesn't know what he's doing.

Associated Press reports that yanking the subsidies could trigger the bizarro result of making free basic coverage available to more low-income people -- yes, hundreds of thousands of them --  while costing taxpayers more.

It takes a lot of explaining, but the bottom line: Higher insurer costs caused by the yanked subsidies mean more spent on those tax credits and the reshuffling of what qualifies for the low-income of "bronze" coverage, meaning free.

If so, we could see more people insured, having signed up for free coverage even as the Evil Weevil declares the ACA "dead."

At the same time, The Washington Post reports that millions of Americans may get locked into coverage plans they don't want. That's because after Dec. 15, those who have coverage are auto-enrolled.

Health industry analysts predict that with the much-shorter season, and with less notice about their options, and with auto-enrollment, many may not make the necessary call regarding a policy that is not suiting their needs.

Whatever happens, Trump will not be able to blame "Obamacare." He is the death-wish engineer of this runaway train.

So, what do we do about this matter? Anyone who has termites knows that they can't be shooed out the door. If they are not treated, the structure they inhabit will be reduced to dust.

However, I've never known any homeowner to allow that to happen. I didn't. We fought. We won. The termites had a feast at our expense, but they could not eat us out of our home.

Neither will the Evil Weevil.

Longtime newspaperman John Young live in Colorado. Email: jyoungcolumn@gmail.com.