Posted on 03/24/2017 6:53:32 AM PDT by MaxistheBest
Reports from Capitol Hill today indicate rising exasperation among old-school conservatives about the shifting, raise-the-ante, refuse-to-say-"yes" demands from most members of the House Freedom Caucus, with regard to the upcoming vote on the House Republican healthcare bill.
The exasperation is well-justified.
The House Freedom Caucus is clearly driven by outside groups such as Heritage Action, which has become such an all-or-nothing, my-way-or-the-highway outfit that it makes Patrick Henry look like a compromising squish. It seems as if every concession made to the Freedom Caucus is met with a new demand.
I just returned from a barbecue place in conservative Mobile, Ala., where a longtime Republican activist stopped me and asked: "Are we going to get a health bill? Are these guys in Congress ever going to prove they can govern? Will they ever know when to get to 'yes'? Are we ever going to stop making the perfect the enemy of the good?" This was a conservative stalwart in deep-red Alabama, not a centrist Long Island inheritor – and even he was disgusted by the House Freedom Caucus' behavior.
The House leadership's original bill contained a lot of good features but doubtless left much to be desired. Its policy mix was poorly cobbled together; the political groundwork for it was nearly non-existent; and the public relations surrounding its release was slow, muted and confused. But since then, the Trump White House and the leadership team have made yeomen's efforts to improve the bill. They have listened, reconsidered, adjusted and reworked a number of provisions — especially by encouraging block grants and work requirements for Medicaid.
But the House Freedom Caucus leaders and their outside pressure groups have refused to get on board even to keep alive what surely will be the only vehicle to replace Obamacare that will come up this year. They have no respect for the reality that the budget "reconciliation" rules do indeed put real parameters on what can be included in such legislation with just 51 votes. They show no memory of how the only reason the whole of Obamacare passed in 2010 was because the Senate did meet a 60-vote threshold on Christmas Eve of 2009 and then used that vote as pretext for claiming reconciliation rules either already had been met or else no longer applied — and thus that Democrats then had an advantage Republicans do not enjoy right now.
They show no understanding that whatever they vote on in the House will absolutely be altered in the Senate and that they in the House will, therefore, get another chance to vote yea or nay on final passage. In effect, the first floor vote in the House amounts, de facto if not de jure, to a procedural vote. Without this vote, they absolutely will not be able to meet their campaign pledges to replace Obamacare. And they will make the Republican Congress and the new White House look hopelessly inept, destroy any political momentum from the election, explode comity within the House and Senate Republican caucuses, and badly hobble the entire conservative agenda in a flurry of mutual recriminations.
Yes, the whole process should be slowed down once it reaches the Senate. Senators should include House conservatives in behind-the-scenes negotiations as the Senate tries to rework the bill. The final bill should be crafted to fit as much within reconciliation rules as possible, should be accurately scored by the Congressional Budget Office before a vote, should be available for members of Congress and the public to read for a full week before the final vote, and should have parts that actually fit together rather than working at cross-purposes.
Yet all of this is best done in the Senate. Only the Senate really can determine how much to squeeze within its own peculiar reconciliation rules. Only the Senate can determine how conservative a bill can be without losing just three of 52 Republican members.
The Democrats have done such a good job at getting rid of the 10th Amendment that “moderates” or going along with Democrats doesn’t seem like utter lawlessness to many.
I stand with the Freedom Caucus.
I do not stand with the GOPe, the Business Roundtable, the WSJ, Fox News, and the Chamber of Commerce.
Simple.
Repeal.
Replace with free market healthcare.
I was disgusted with them when they allowed Ryan to be speaker
Repeal.
Full repeal.
Just like you promised.
Then, separately, if you can accomplish any replacement (which I do not recommend), go for it.
But don’t put lipstick on this ObamaCare pig and call it TrumpCare.
NO, you’re 100% WRONG! We should be disgusted with Paul Lyin Ryan! He didn’t allow ANY input to the bill and stacked it with stuff he KNEW the conservatives would not support. Remember who Ryan is - he makes promises and never keeps them. As much as I hate to admit it, Trump got out-foxed by him.
As Michelle Malkin says: When you lay down with dogs, you get fleas. When you lay down with Paul Ryan, you get fleeced!
In 2018 people will remember the Freedom Caucus voted with Nancy Pelosi to stop Obamcare repeal. Good or bad, that is the optics.
Sorry, but the Freedom Caucus is quite right and you are dead wrong. Another industry-written bill does nothing to meet the demands of the electorate.
Only severely dishonest people will remember it that way.
At some point, though, you have to deal with reality. If Obamacare is going to die, it is going to have to die of a thousand cuts. There simply are not the votes in the GOP, right now, to do an entire repeal, and it is questionable whether an entire repeal is even possible under the reconciliation rules.
My advice - get the most conservative bill you can passed, then keep chipping away at Obamacare, especially in 2018 when Republicans SHOULD pick up 6-8 Senate seats.
The Freedom Caucus is the only thing keeping the GOP leadership in the House from self-immolation. The “three phase” B.S. wasn’t going to work, and everyone knew it. If the GOP passes a Phase 1 that doesn’t reduce premiums for people for 2018, there won’t be a Phase 2 because the GOP will face a disaster of historic proportions in the 2018 midterms.
I’m sure this author opposed every Tea Party nominee.
It needs to be torn up and re done
>>Its policy mix was poorly cobbled together; the political groundwork for it was nearly non-existent; and the public relations surrounding its release was slow, muted and confused.<<
So the new standard for legislation is a crappy bill that hurts taxpayers is better than a good bill. The GOP has had SEVEN years to come up with a good bill. Why can’t (won’t) they do it right now?
We were promised repeal and replace. We were told the swamp would be drained (where Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell reside). Where’s the reduction in premiums and deductibles? Why are we once again being told we have to read it to find out what’s in it - (shades of Nancy Pelosi) current Drudge headline?
Full Repeal or Fight!
This article suggests the Freedom Caucus is dumb for not allowing the vote so it goes to the Senate where the “real work” gets done. It also tries to pin the blame for failure to repeal on them, even though they are the only ones actually calling for full repeal.
In short, because they don’t want Obamacare Lite, they are to blame for Obamacare.
Makes no sense on any level.
This is misplaced anger! The REAL issue is with the DEMS WHO CASUED THE PROBLEM AND REFUSE TO DO WHAT IS RIGHT TO FIX IT!
IF 8 of them would do the right thing this would be solved.
Do not blame the Freedom Caucus!
The Globalist Cheap Labor Express Caucus more like it.
The ENTIRE GOPe can go “F” themselves!
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