Bette Midler equates GOP health care bill to Assad gassing his own people

Actress Bette Midler doesn't hide the fact that her politics skew far left, but she went the extra mile to insult Republican congressmen who voted for the American Health Care Act, the legislation intended to replace Obamacare.

Midler tweeted Thursday, "800 billion dollars cut to Medicaid so #GOPGOONS can give a trillion $ tax cut to the rich. Typical of Freedom Caucus; radical fanatics."

The bill was passed Thursday after failing previously because of objections from the Freedom Caucus, a group of conservative Republicans in the House of Representatives. Democrats and liberals have assailed the passage of the bill, with many saying that it will kill many Americans by reducing the number of insured.

The AHCA has a provision to cut $880 billion from Medicaid. On Sunday, Speaker Paul Ryan explained why the cut would not hurt Americans, saying that the current "micro-management of Medicaid" by the government was failing.

"The Medicaid system isn't working," he explained. "Doctors aren't taking Medicaid, hospitals can't survive with Medicaid alone. So by giving the states the ability to customize their Medicaid population their program to work for them."

Midler followed up Friday referring to Freedom Caucus members as "homegrown Assads," and equated them to "gassing their own people," a reference to the global consensus that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had bombed his own people with chemical weapons, a crime against humanity.

Critics of the bill have called it a tax break for the wealthy on the backs of the poor and the middle class, but Republicans say it just rolls back the enormous tax burden imposed by former President Barack Obama's signature legislation.

The bill heads to the Senate for consideration, but faces an uphill battle there as many Republican senators say they will write their own version instead of passing the House bill.