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Trump Learns the Hard Way That Policy Details Matter
National Review ^ | March 24, 2017 | JIM GERAGHTY

Posted on 03/27/2017 10:06:35 AM PDT by reaganaut1

The good news is no one can say President Trump didn’t try to persuade House Republicans that they should pass the American Health Care Act. He invited lawmakers to the White House, dispatched his key aides to Capitol Hill, worked the phones, cajoled, charmed, arm-twisted, threatened . . .

He did everything short of actually attempting to understand why House Republicans didn’t want to vote for it.

President Trump and Speaker Paul Ryan chose to cancel the vote on the AHCA late Friday afternoon. Earlier this week, the loudest argument from Trump was that if House Republicans didn’t pass the bill, it could cost the GOP their majority in 2018. This may or may not be true; it’s also possible that passing a disappointing replacement could cost the GOP their majority. Either way, Trump went so far as to threaten primary challenges to those who didn’t sign on.

It’s not that the House Republicans who refused to vote for the bill didn’t fear such a threat, or that they were nonchalant about keeping their majority. They held out not because they lacked motivation to replace Obamacare.

No, in the end, they simply didn’t like what was in the bill and didn’t have faith that the Senate would improve it, or that it would get better in conference committee. At least for now, a significant number of House Republicans fear the consequences of passing an insufficient bill more than the consequences of failing to pass a bill.

(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...


TOPICS: Editorial; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 115th; ahca; first100days; lessons; ryancarebillpulled; tooconservative; trump; trumpryancarebill
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Trump has mostly good political instincts but needs to pay more attention to details.
1 posted on 03/27/2017 10:06:35 AM PDT by reaganaut1
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To: reaganaut1

I don’t do NeverTrumper National Review.


2 posted on 03/27/2017 10:13:49 AM PDT by jacknhoo (Luke 12:51; Think ye, that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, no; but separation.)
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To: reaganaut1

It was a crap bill and would have sunk the Trump presidency.


3 posted on 03/27/2017 10:14:43 AM PDT by Arm_Bears (Rope. Tree. Politician/Journalist. Some assembly required.)
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To: reaganaut1
Trump has good political instincts but also needs to know that what he thinks is best for the country may not be what is best for the constituents of District X in the State of So-and-So.

At least for now, a significant number of House Republicans fear the consequences of passing an insufficient bill more than the consequences of failing to pass a bill.

Of course they do. What kind of lunatic would go out on a limb to pass a bill that had the support of about 17% of the American public? The Third Reich could probably attract the support of 20% of any random group of people -- so this was an awful bill by any objective measure.

4 posted on 03/27/2017 10:14:48 AM PDT by Alberta's Child (President Donald J. Trump ... Making America Great Again, 140 Characters at a Time)
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To: reaganaut1
Perhaps they should have passed​ it to see what was in it. ;!
5 posted on 03/27/2017 10:21:29 AM PDT by proud American in Canada (May God Bless the U.S.A. (Trump: I will bear the slings and arrows for you, the American people).)
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To: reaganaut1

They changed the label on the can and hired a new spokesman.
They did the marketing and focus groups gave a big thumbs up.

But when plopped into the bowls, the hungry dogs sniffed, tasted, then walked away with their heads down stomachs rumbling.
They still didn’t like American (formerly Affordable) Dog Food.


6 posted on 03/27/2017 10:22:37 AM PDT by tumblindice
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To: jacknhoo

Trump told the RINOs that he was behind the bill they brought forward out of the swamp of K-street cronyism. The bill failed, along with Ryan and now we know the whole mess for what it is, if we did not before. Perhaps Trump did not know what he was doing, and perhaps he did. I continue to vote in the latter camp. Ryan did not want real reform and so he didn’t propose it. The Senate might have gone for it, and Trump would have signed it. Dangerous game of chicken for the RINOs.


7 posted on 03/27/2017 10:24:08 AM PDT by AndyJackson
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To: jacknhoo
And yes. The NR slant is the Trump is trying to play the inside DC game and lostTrump did not get elected playing the DC game. He was running against it. Why would he play in it?

NR has become totally irrelevant.

8 posted on 03/27/2017 10:26:01 AM PDT by AndyJackson
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To: reaganaut1

This is such a polarized issue so why not split in half. If it costs $1T over 10 years (example), allocate the money to D and R based on the popular vote...D’s would get a little bit more than R’s. When they vote, their vote would go straight to the D or the R medical plan and it would be irreversible until the next election. I’m betting that most of the medicaid users are D voters, so they’d be forced to pick up that part of the tab. If the medicaid voters voted R, then R’s would pick up the tab. Bottom line is let each party devise their own system with predetermined public funding amounts. OK, it’s little out there, but the premise seems logical.


9 posted on 03/27/2017 10:28:50 AM PDT by sanjuanbob
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To: reaganaut1

Is Geraghty still a Never Trump doucebag?


10 posted on 03/27/2017 10:29:44 AM PDT by jospehm20
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To: reaganaut1

Allowing Paul Rino, a Rat and ObominationCare supporter, to write the bill caused the product to be, in essence, much the same as the original.

The RinoCare bill would have failed to meet any of the objectives the country needs: much less government involvement, competition among private companies to lower costs, ability to select what kind of coverage a person/family wants that is up them their choice, zero as in no government requirements on anything about insurance coverage and other logical common sense objectives.


11 posted on 03/27/2017 10:32:08 AM PDT by rigelkentaurus
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To: reaganaut1
...."Trump has mostly good political instincts but needs to pay more attention to details"....

Still very early in his Presidency...I think it's who who assigns 'the details' to that is more than Trumps issue as he's a big picture thinker. HE sees a project, knows what he wants it to be and "hires" those to accomplish the "details"...I think his "detail" people need to communicate with him more perhaps than they are.....or at least with his team.

Then you have too many republicans wanting to wear the Big Hat ...Ryan as an example.


12 posted on 03/27/2017 10:33:06 AM PDT by caww
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To: reaganaut1

B.S. Trump hopefully learned NOT to rely on swamp dwellers for policy. RYNOS LED BY Ryan for starters.


13 posted on 03/27/2017 10:33:55 AM PDT by amihow
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To: jacknhoo

I don’t do National Review either. Bridge burned.

Talk about their worship of ideology, while the country was on fire, was outrageous.

Brett Stephens turned out to be an obnoxious putz, blinded by the old-time party religion that had already led the R-Party to destruction.

Why do they think an unorthodox warrior like Trump was able to desecrate their idols?

Trump was light on ideology, but laser like on restoring American tradition. He should be able to bring a little degree of comity to the Left and the Right. Not much, but some, because he is less political than they are, and can level the playing field for them, by bombing the hell out of it.

NeverTrumpers still love the NR, CR and RS, WSJ, Amanda Carpenter types, Ana Navarrolooney and Crooooze, (who has incidentally dropped his religious zealot role, never seen in any church).


14 posted on 03/27/2017 10:35:21 AM PDT by RitaOK (Viva Christo Rey! Public Education/Academia are the farm team for more Marxists coming... infinitum.)
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To: reaganaut1

Jim Hitpiece NeverTrumper Geraghty.

No thanks.


15 posted on 03/27/2017 10:50:09 AM PDT by LS ("Castles Made of Sand, Fall in the Sea . . . Eventually" (Hendrix))
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To: jacknhoo

>>I don’t do NeverTrumper National Review.<<

Yet here you are.


16 posted on 03/27/2017 10:52:11 AM PDT by BlueYonder
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Never Trumpers never miss a chance to gloat. They still play checkers.


17 posted on 03/27/2017 11:07:26 AM PDT by proust (Trump / Pence 2016!)
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To: reaganaut1

Repeal, not replace, no matter which side Trump stands on.


18 posted on 03/27/2017 11:08:16 AM PDT by Teacher317 (We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men)
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To: reaganaut1
I think that the President made it clear that he did not see the issue as at all simplistic in agreeing to the Ryan approach as a first of at least three steps to get the Bureaucracy supervising Health Care off of the backs of American medical care provisioning.

I think the essential thing, now, is that we keep moving forward in the quest. So long as many Republicans still cling to the folly that the Federal Government has a proper role in civilian health care, the progress back to what actually works will be slow.

The fundamental fallacy driving Federal involvement is the egalitarian-collectivist mindset, that premises unlimited claims to power, so long as those claiming power seek to level the conditions of those subject of their power.

In the Jacobin & Bolshevik revolutions, the orchestrators assumed the "right" to freely slaughter those who offended by having wealth & land, or being connected with organized religion. Since LBJ on the Health Care front, the egalitarian collectivists have been endeavoring to make certain that medical care was provided equally to rich & poor, healthy & unhealthy, provident & improvident.

Other than this Jacobin/Marxist obsession with leveling humanity, there is no rational reason to intrude a far off bureaucracy into something as inherently immediate, inherently local, as the relationship between physician & patient. Nor is the obsession really excusable on a pretense of the special needs of the person with a medical "precondition" (so far as the insurance industry is concerned).

The oath that physicians have been taking for 2300 years, requires them to treat the person with the "precondition," whether that person can pay or not. (Policing the insurance industry in this manner--not a role granted in the Federal Constitution--is a ridiculous red herring, when you recognize the effect of that ancient, but ongoing oath.)

LBJ's 1965 intrusion, tripled the percentage of our GDP that went to Health Care. Obama's ACA was a piling on an already developing disaster.

One other very clear factor. Whereas the far less regulated computer related fields have seen immense cost reductions, as the power of innovation increased; the cost of new technology in the over meddled with provision of Health Care, has exploded upwards.

Does anyone not understand that imposing layers of bureaucracy does not help the conscientious physician in addressing the unique situation of each afflicted patient; that you cannot treat unique individuals by arbitrary check lists; that Government regulated health care--and simply deciding the extent of funding for whatever is a form of regulation;--can never be an improvement over the care furnished by skilled people, honorably required to do the best they can for each unique individual in each unique situation.

(And believe it or not, many of those now hobbled physicians actually know more about health care than the bureaucrats in Washington!)

19 posted on 03/27/2017 11:10:00 AM PDT by Ohioan
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To: Teacher317

..or what he campaigned on. He’s supposed to please you, not the millions he repeatedly made a promise to, right?


20 posted on 03/27/2017 11:10:24 AM PDT by proust (Trump / Pence 2016!)
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