Posted on 11/15/2013 4:43:25 AM PST by IbJensen
Since yesterday afternoon a bunch of good Republicans who’ve decided to put their faith in the man who banned the incandescent light bulb, have been telling me how wrong I am for thinking the Upton Plan is a trap.
Folks, it is a trap. You may not think it is a trap, but the Democrats are going to use it to turn the tables on the GOP
Certainly Upton and House Republican Leaders do not think it is a trap, but it is one the Democrats have flipped skillfully on the GOP.
First, understand that Upton is messaging legislation. It allows everyone in Congress to say they support people being able to keep their healthcare plans, but it lacks measures to force insurance companies to let people keep their plans. It is a paper tiger.
But Republicans are starting to pick up worried Democrat votes for the Upton legislation who feel they must stand for something with 2014 on the horizon.
So Upton will pass. It will be “bipartisan.”
Democrats, meanwhile, need to get Mary Landrieu and a host of other red state Democrats re-elected. The President’s law be damned, they want to save their Senate majority. Remember, Obamacare already has embedded in the law provisions bailing out insurance companies and the Democrats and Republicans have shown themselves perfectly comfortable bailing out businesses deemed “too big to fail” in the past. Insurance companies participating in the exchanges will be deemed “too big to fail” I guarantee. So the Democrats can hurt insurance companies and undermine their own exchanges, but the government will bail out the insurance companies affected under the terms of Obamacare as already written.
The House would send the Senate the Upton measure. The Senate Democrats will respond, “But Upton has not teeth. Landrieu has teeth.” The Senate will substitute Landrieu’s legislation for Upton’s, send it back to the House, and watch the GOP try to explain why they say their for letting people keep their health insurance plans, but will not actually force insurance companies to let people keep those plans.
Yet again, the GOP will be cast as the tool of insurance companies and Mary Landrieu as the savior of plans people already have. Republicans will cave. They’ll console themselves thinking Landrieu’s bill will undermine Obamacare and cause it to collapse.
Upton’s legislation by itself isn’t worth worrying about. But Upton passed with Landrieu’s bill still on the table gives the Democrats the offense back. Republicans will absolutely flub the response and, embarrassed, vote for Landrieu. If you don’t believe me, Fred Upton is open to Landrieu’s plan himself.
Lots of Republican pundits and folks at the NRSC are giddy thinking Landrieu will blow up Obamacare. No. It will deliver even quicker rate shock to Americans, but it will not stop Obamacare. Landrieu will do much harm, but it won’t somehow repeal or obstruct Obamacare.
The GOP is getting too clever by half. They need to just demand full repeal of Obamacare — not let Democrats like Landrieu save themselves while claiming to fix the unfixable.
Obamacare is not fixable. If anything, Landrieu shows just how unfixable it is.
In any event, this is all going to become academic as I expect the President, by the end of this week, to find some new way to claim he is saving people without Congress doing anything and then put the GOP leadership on defense where GOP leaders will spontaneously and pre-emptively blame Ted Cruz and Mike Lee and do whatever the President wants them to do.
Republicans thought themselves clever, but the Democrats are baiting a trap of the Republicans’ own design. The Democrats, and especially the President, want to be thrown in that briar patch.
Hopefully many, including baby-fat Landrieu, are eliminated from Congress!
The only thing the House should vote on is repeal of obamacare. Vote on it over and over. Don't try to fix it, it is unfixable. Then on to impeachment.
How stupid can Upton be? Or is he being blackmailed, as Chief Weasel John Roberts was? When your enemy is committing suicide, you wouldn’t interfere. When would Democrats ever do that for Repubicans?
Picture of BO and Dims "fixing" Obamacare, Laocoön courtesy of the Vatican:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/63/192939697_ae060b422b.jpg
Mark Levin explains why Republicans SHOULD NOT pass ‘keep your plan’ legislation for Obamacare
3 Minutes
MARK LEVIN NOW IS THE TIME TO VOTE TO DEFFUND OR REPEAL, SHOVE THIS DAMNED OBAMACARE DOWN THEIR THROAT
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceZqBc7thpc
According to Eric Cantor, Obama says he will veto ‘keep your plan’ legislation.
Now Obama wants a closed door meeting with insurance execs.
why would any GOP rep vote for a bill that tells the public their private health insurance companies will be “required” to sell an illegal “substandard” product, on the premise they will have a one year reprieve (with the “winner” selectively decided by lord obama) from being prosecuted by the feds?
“Now Obama wants a closed door meeting with insurance execs.”
uh huh
NOW who’s standing between who and the pitchforks?
karma is a be-yotch
Of course Obama wants the meeting behind closed doors -
No doubt it will be closed doors, how else can Obama “encourage” those folks to do what he wants.
On Fox moments ago Peter Johnson Jr suggested this meeting with insurance executives be televised. Recall the promise of the Health care debate being televised on c-span? The comment from Peter Johnson was likely referring to that promise broken.
It should be televised and I’m already hammering away at the liberals on twitter about it.
If you like your backroom deal, you can keep your backroom deal.
I want a law written in stone that NO ONE, especially congress along with cabinet members and their families, is exempt from any and all laws they pass or create rules and regs for.
WE should insist on this and we should do it loudly and long. NO EXEMPTIONS for anyone. None.
*sigh*
Repeal or nothing.
I have a real problem with that one. You want to give THIS GOVERNMENT the right to send companies to jail or fine them if they fail to sell their product even when they choose not to do so?
Really?
Even if they are losing money on the deal?
Even if that product has been discontinued?
I don't think so.
-——Boehner: Affordable Care Act ‘can’t be fixed’——
http://www.nbcnews.com/video/nbc-news/53554389/#53554389
So, how about this?
There is NOTHING anyone can do at this point that will “fix” this problem. Policies have been canceled. No legislation is going to bring that back. Small business owners around September are going to face the same prospect. For those who have insurance, premiums will dramatically increase. It’s simple economics.
The best thing the Republicans can to is to pull out one of their many plans that they’ve offered (yes, they have them) and start talking about repealing Obamacare immediately. They shouldn’t be talking about delays.
They would vote for it because they’ve become the ‘let’s just all get along’ doofusses. They’re sycophants entrenched in a lifetime career.
The other way to look at this is that it will be quite entertaining to see Democrats vote against (in the Upton bill) exactly what Obama proposed yesterday.
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