Posted on 03/12/2017 5:10:11 AM PDT by Jim Robinson
A whole lot of congressional swamp dwellers and citizens alike are entirely missing the point regarding a complete and final repeal of Obamacare. How soon they forget the outrage of we the people when Obamacare was forced down our throats and then a redoubling of that outrage when Chief Justice Roberts failed to uphold the constitution and toss it out. Have they forgotten why the tea party sprang up and why we drove out packs of rats and herds of RINOs in the last several election cycles?
We the self-sufficient free citizens of America do not want a federal takeover of our healthcare system! Period! We want Obamacare fully repealed and the government out of it, forever!! It doesn't matter how "great" a system Ryan and company may design, it's a government system and it leaves the door wide open for the next congress and the next administration to screw it and us up royal!
Repeal every damn steenking word of it and drive a constitutional stake through its heart so it can never rise again!
That's why we elected Republican majorities and a Republican president! To dump Obamacare and scrap any and all federal roadblocks to private companies competing and designing health care programs that our citizens can willingly purchase (or not purchase) on our own without government interference!
No government controls over what must be included in any policy. For example, if the industry learns that there is a market for low cost policies with high deductibles and no coverage requirements for abortion, birth control, gender change, pediatrics, routine office visits, etc, ie, the customers are interested in INSURANCE not a full service plan, then they will provide it and plans tailored like this to meet customer actual needs will insure more people and will keep overall costs down in the long run.
Americans do not want and have never wanted cradle-to-grave government protection or control over our lives. We've known for a long time that the less government there is, the better off we are. Thus the American concept of LIMITED government.
Our constitution clearly reserves governance of health insurance policies, private contracts, health care providers, etc, to the states and the people. Congress must get out and stay OUT!!
And that means providing for poor people too. Our federal government was never intended to be a provider for the poor. If the people wish their local and state governments to provide hospitals, clinics, doctors and or insurance plans for the poor, that's their business, but none of the fed's. Our constitutional limits on the federal government forbids it.
Again, we do not want our congressional representatives interfering in our private health care systems. Period!
Repeal Obamacare and be done with it! If any other federal roadblocks to free markets can be removed, allowing competition over state lines, for example, go for it!
But otherwise no federal control or meddling!
Set our people and our markets free!!
Disagree that it can be ‘repealed’ in reconciliation.
It can be ‘defunded’ in reconciliation.
It can be repealed by a vote on the Senate floor. A filibuster by democrats would necessitate 60 votes to cut off debate and vote.
The Ryan argument is to defund and gut it, but not to repeal. Repealing by doing away with filibusters would remove one of the last barriers to full mob democracy rule; republic would be lost unless the 17th Amendment were repealed.
There is a path to repealing the 17th amendment that is realistic and popular. But that’s via an Article V state process which is still in work and is not immediate to the events of the moment.
The Ryan argument is weak and befitting of his character and the spinelessness of the establishment party he is a member of. They are indeed weaklings. There is no other descriptor that fits.
Reid’s use of the nuclear option was constrained to judicial appointments. Using the nuclear option on repealing laws was not used. If it is used to repeal laws, it’s goodbye republic when the democrats control Congress in the future.
For now, the executive has only a hardball option of prosecuting democrat leadership for fraud and embezzlement, intentional misappropriation of funds, bypassing Congress, illegal payments to affiliates.
A wink and a nod can be offered in association with reducing prison time for good behavior. Good behavior can be understood to mean voting for cloture on major administration initiatives. That’s hardball.
Absolutely! The government screws up everything it touches. Their time would be better spent trying to make actual health care more affordable along with lower drug costs. I read recently that a heart operation costing $100,000 here costs under $7,000 in India and a lot of other countries.
Perhaps its just a matter of semantics, but the way the sides are lining up suggests it really can be repealed. Many on the 'Don't do Ryan, do repeal' front cite say that in 2015 a repeal bill acceptable to them was passed, with then unanimous GOP (and I presume zilch Rat) vote, sent on to Obama and there vetoed. Although I don't recall the specifics back in 2015 no one has denied this. At best they say the RINOs felt safe their votes for it were safe as Obama was sure to veto it. Rand Paul in the Senate and Jim Jordon in the House both say they've introduced that identical bill as an acceptable alternative to RyanCare. So the loudest protagonists against RyanCare, and a pair who have a track record of taking stands on their principles, still say what was passed in 2015 WAS repeal, not defund. Louis Gohmert says it was passed via reconciliation and that the parliamentarian then ruled it was ok for reconciliation. Louis is another known for taking stands based on principle over politics. Unless Senate Rats voted for it or there never was anything passed for Obama to veto Louis must be correct. There weren't 60 GOP votes.
Pretty strong evidence to me that repeal can get past the arcane Senate reconciliation rules. If it did in 2015 the identical bill should be able to in 2017. If the parliamentarian flips, then Cruz says VP Pence can play hero and flip it back and Schumer would need 12 RINOs to join him to overrule Pence. Plenty of RINOs in the Senate, but I doubt 12 are brave enough to cross Trump's VP on that. Close enough for Paul, Jordan, Gohmert and Cruz to call 'repeal' aught to be close enough to 'repeal' for anyone opposing Obamacare from the Conservative side. So to me it looks like repeal IS technically possible. Now, whether it can win enough enough RINO votes to pass the House, whether it can lose no more than two RINO votes in the Senate, THAT sadly is the real question. Put the onus on the real deal breakers. RINOs are notorious squishes, make them cave instead.
Appearances may not be realities and I've been surprised, often pleasantly, too many times by Trump to have faith in my ability to read the Trump leaves. But I'd be happier if it appeared that Trump was leaning on the RINOs opposing a real 2017 repeal effort rather than on the Conservatives pushing for one.
It’s not semantics. The terms ‘repeal’ and ‘reconciliation’ have two separate and very different definitions in Congress.
> “Many on the ‘Don’t do Ryan, do repeal’ front cite say that in 2015 a repeal bill acceptable to them was passed, with then unanimous GOP (and I presume zilch Rat) vote, sent on to Obama and there vetoed.”
That was a reconciliation bill, not a repeal bill. The media is dumb. They start echoing to each other what someone said when, where, how, why and it gets amplified out to the public where it takes on a life of its own.
“The Senate passed the Restoring Americans’ Healthcare Freedom ***Reconciliation*** Act in December. It was successful because Republicans used the process of budget ***reconciliation*** that prevented a filibuster by Senate Democrats.”
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/congress-send-obamacare-repeal-president-n491316
But the lightweight Pee Wee Herman of the House aka ‘Paul the former Pauvre Bearded Ryan’ called it a ‘repeal bill’ because he thinks his constituents are stupider than he is, and they are. And he knows the press can be dumb, so he played it as a ‘repeal’ because he had promised the republican base there would be a ‘repeal’. Ryan is a liar. Yes, it’s true. I am not a fan of Ryan and haven’t been since long before many Freepers woke up to his duplicity.
But was Ryan repealing anything? What was this ‘Restoring Americans’ Healthcare Freedom Reconciliation Act ‘? Was it a repeal? A repeal of what?
Was it a repeal of ACA? NO!
What was it a repeal of, if anything? It was a repeal of certain finance provisions of ACA that are only possible through reconciliation. In other words, it’s a partial repeal of certain applicable financial things, not a full repeal. And if it’s not a full repeal, then the democrats can at a future date unrepeal the partial repeal and NOT be subject to a filibuster because they are playing inside the confines of an existing law. The law still stands, so presto, no pesky filibusters to be concerned about.
If a law is fully repealed, then to revive it requires a new law and each new law is subject to a filibuster. This is why a full repeal is necessary now.
If President Trump can get the leverage he needs to exact a full repeal of the ACA, then it will not be possible, not in our lifetimes for the democrats to pass another new ACA because of the history of their incompetence, corruption, duplicity, criminality with the current ACA. Whatever, they would need to have a filibuster proof majority.
But if the ACA survives but is only partially repealed in reconciliation, then when the democrats get control of Congress in the future, they will NOT need a filibuster proof majority because the ACA is still standing.
Ryan’s reconciliation bill was a gimmick. Here is the text of Ryan’s bill:
https://www.congress.gov/114/bills/hr3762/BILLS-114hr3762enr.pdf
Reconciliation bills are a fine-tuning, conformance, calibration of government appropriations to program spending. Repeal in this context means repealing specific provisions related to financing in an effort to not waste taxpayer dollars or to change/modify provisions that need beefing up. Reconciliation is not used to repeal an Act of Congress. The ACA aka Obamacare is an Act of Congress.
Here’s more info on the reconciliation process:
http://www.cbpp.org/sites/default/files/atoms/files/1-22-15bud.pdf
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Repealing an Act of Congress is introducing a law to take down another law.
Now, what does a repeal of a ‘law’ look like? It usually is one page and is very simple. It is a law introduced to simply repeal another law. Here’s an example:
https://www.congress.gov/104/bills/hr427/BILLS-104hr427ih.pdf
It means that the repealed law NO LONGER EXISTS.
Whereas a partial repeal such as through a reconciliation process means the law STILL EXISTS.
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With respect to a FULL repeal of ACA, the dems will never cave on a filibuster unless there is a hardball play that they fear so much that they must give in. Under those circumstances, they will still find an excuse to pin on the republicans. For example, Trump threatened to pull the feeding tube on a grandmother or Sessions threatened to shoot my puppy or some such.
The dems have never had to face someone like Trump who fights back twice as hard. They are watching with dazed looks as he tosses them out of the ring.
It’s funny they never had a problem putting republicans or conservatives in prison, but shudder the thought of republicans ever even thinking of putting any of them behind bars. But Trump is a very different kind of republican and they are still in the process of sizing him up.
If high-level dems are prosecuted for actual crimes associated with Obamacare, then there is in theory that the ACA is null and void by corrupt practices and hence requires repeal. If the dems insist on filibustering the repeal, then they may be charged with complicity in corrupt practices in upholding a law sustained by criminal actions.
If Sessions can get the goods on high-level dems associated with the 2012 theft from Fannie/Freddie of ~$130 billion for transferring to Obamacare section 1402 subsidies, then Trump gains the leverage and he will get the 60-votes to fully repeal the ACA. He will then have a clear mandate to reform and improve the US healthcare system to market standards and efficiency.
Good. I hope Trump also has experience fighting the 'tar-baby' tactics of the RINOs. They try to get you so stuck in irrelevant minutia that you can't throw a punch. IIRC, reconciliation was established by the budget act of 1974 as a way to get around the Senate filibuster rule and actually have a budget. The number of continuing resolutions since suggest its been less than a total success.
Reconciliation limits what can be included as the price for the minority waving its filibuster. The current debate shows there are differing views on how much can be done via it. Ryan's very limited take isn't the only view on that. We should, as Harry Reid was in creating the problem, aggressively pushing the limits, not minimizing them. Harry, Barry and Nancy took much of a year to enact their monster. We shouldn't limit ourselves to brief, light exertions to destroy it. There are other ways around filibuster, which are in our power if we hold what is allegedly our side together. We could end it; Reid would have had the need been sufficient. Alas too many old RINOs would block that. We could revise the filibuster, as have many Rat majority leaders before. Revert it to a real talkathon and let them talk themselves out. Go into continuous session (after a brief formal recess to let Trump make as many recess appointments as he wishes) and enforce the two speech rule. They'll run out of eligible speeches in a couple months and then 51 votes win. It's been threatened for Grouch and this is as important. And their obstruction will only make our midterm wins the greater. Show them we have the will and ability to beat a filibuster and tell them if they keep wasting time merely for the sake of wasting time we will THEN take that toy away from them.
Trump and the GOP promised to end ObamaCare. They didn't promise to maybe end it later if the midterms go well enough. Don't surrender two years to the tar baby. That's very weak! Light it up and if some RINOs are lost in the burning mess so be it. Stop coddling those using the Medicaid expansions. They fall in two groups: those who'd qualified for Medicaid before (and would thus post repeal), but hadn't bothered to sign up for it until pushed, or those who weren't poor enough to qualify for Medicaid before. The former won't lose anything they really wanted and boot the latter out of their lower middle class hammock. Besides studies show healthcare outcomes are actually better for the uninsured than for the Medicaid insured! The only real losers will be the lib politicians who won't be able to handout worthless alleged 'goodies.' Weighed against the masses of hurting, paying, taxpayers who've seen their health care and insurance costs skyrocket I'm with the real victims.
History says our voters have gotten very impatient, and not necessarily wisely so. They fired the GOP in 2006 for diddling around the edges. They fired traditional 'moderate' Republicans and fired traditional 'conservative' Republicans whom most had expected to be voted in to fix the current mess. Instead they voted for the most aggressive agent of change available. If we don't do what they clearly wanted done, promptly, they'll turn on those in power again. And they may not turn wisely. Yes, go after the Democrat crooks. It will help, eventually, if we hold on to power. But the RINO tar baby stall has got to go. Now!
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