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.
Which election day?
Not passing it will allow Obamacare to stay in place and continue to implode. And it will be a major blow to the Trump Presidency. Obamacare has almost 50% approval as it is.
Pure nonsense. Read HR 1628 and provide me with your specific objections recognizing the limitations of passage in the Senate under reconciliation.
Subtitle A—Repeal and Replace of Health-Related Tax Policy
Sec. 201. Recapture excess advance payments of premium tax credits.
Sec. 202. Additional modifications to premium tax credit.
Sec. 203. Premium tax credit.
Sec. 204. Small business tax credit.
Sec. 205. Individual mandate.
Sec. 206. Employer mandate.
Sec. 207. Repeal of the tax on employee health insurance premiums and health plan benefits.
Sec. 208. Repeal of tax on over-the-counter medications.
Sec. 209. Repeal of increase of tax on health savings accounts.
Sec. 210. Repeal of limitations on contributions to flexible spending accounts.
Sec. 211. Repeal of medical device excise tax.
Sec. 212. Repeal of elimination of deduction for expenses allocable to medicare part D subsidy.
Sec. 213. Repeal of increase in income threshold for determining medical care deduction.
Sec. 214. Repeal of Medicare tax increase.
Sec. 215. Refundable tax credit for health insurance coverage.
Sec. 216. Maximum contribution limit to health savings account increased to amount of deductible and out-of-pocket limitation.
Sec. 217. Allow both spouses to make catch-up contributions to the same health savings account.
Sec. 218. Special rule for certain medical expenses incurred before establishment of health savings account.
Subtitle B—Repeal of certain consumer taxes
Sec. 221. Repeal of tax on prescription medications.
Sec. 222. Repeal of health insurance tax.
Subtitle C—Repeal of Tanning Tax
Sec. 231. Repeal of tanning tax.
...old-school conservatives...
Ah, you’re either a Conservative or you’re not.
There isn’t two sets of Conservatives.
“Old-school Conservatives” are GOPe Leftists.
“Pure nonsense. Read HR 1628 and provide me with your specific objections”
It seems that everyone has a rock solid opinion on the bill UNTIL you ask them to quantify their opinion...reminds me of Watters World on Fox News when Jesse Watters asks the Social Justice Warriors to explain WHY they hate Trump(typical answer is “Trump is Hitler”) or name what was Obama’s biggest success(typical answer is a scared look on their face, realizing they are on camera)!!
the most important part of the AHCA is what it fails to include: a repeal of the regulatory architecture of Obamacare that is responsible for the rising cost of health care.
Title I of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (i.e., Obamacare) lays out a number of health insurance mandates and regulations that make up the regulatory architecture of Obamacare including guaranteed issue, community rating, essential health benefits, and actuarial value, among others. While the AHCA does repeal actuarial value and partially addresses community rating by moving the age rating ratio that Obamacare imposes from 3:1 to 5:1, the bill falls far short of comprehensively addressing the overall regulatory framework of Obamacare.
Obamacare’s creators designed this regulatory framework with the intent to take control of private health insurance plans and convert them into a highly regulated, quasi-public utility. As one of the law’s supporters explained back in 2010, Obamacare’s design “transforms health insurance into a public accommodation,” and turns private health insurance into “a regulated industry … that, in its restructured form, will therefore take on certain characteristics of a public utility.” It strains credibility to characterize this bill as repealing Obamacare when the mechanisms for the federal government’s takeover of health care remain firmly in place.
Taken together, these mandates and regulations restrict consumer choice and drive up the cost of health care premiums by a national average of 44.5 to 68 percent.
I guess it might be ok for the radical conservatives to cut off their noses to spite their face but it is bad form to complain about the pain and all the blood
I was in the pass-something camp, but I listened to a freedom caucus guy on C-SPAN and changed my mind. It would have been possible to pick up their votes with a less bad bill, but the killer was the remaining federal insurance regulations.
“Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., a Freedom Caucus member, told reporters Trump extended an offer to the group Thursday to include a repeal of Obamacare’s essential health benefits requirements, 10 services plans are required to cover, in the bill.”
“But Harris said members wanted more of the regulations repealed and voted to reject Trump’s deal during their meeting.”
I guess this is what the Freedom Caucus calls negotiating!!
now=not
LMAO! That's a sucker game, like "Raise taxes now and we'll cut spending later."
by the DHS secretary who has huge latitude under Obamacare.
And will under the next Rat administration. Zerocare needs to die a legislative death. And why doesn't the DHS secretary exercise his huge latitude under Obamacare to do "phase 2" today?
The bill has been pulled. Trump loses another one. Not good.
Looks that way - although I wouldn't rule out this having been a gambit in a longer plan. If not: back a bad bill, get beat - and hopefully learn from the mistake.
Trump devoted a huge amount of personal time along with others in the Administration to push this bill. He held several huge campaign-style rallies to advocate the passage of the bill. He is in charge and will be held responsible for the failure to pass the repeal and replacement of Obamacare, which remains in effect.
He is in charge and will be held responsible for the failure to pass the repeal and replacement of Obamacare
Like I said.
The GOP had seven years to formulate a sound, market based alternative to ObamaCare, and all Nancy Ryan could tell us is we'd have to pass this bill to see what was really in it. We just dodged a bullet. Now let's get it right!
> all-or-nothing, my-way-or-the-highway
That is RINO Ryan. Backed by American Action Network, the same group who pushed Gang of Eight Amnesty.
That is exactly what's wrong with "fixing" ObamaCare instead of killing it. Whatever administrative changes Dr. Price can make today can be reversed later by Drs. Marx or Engels. Unless ObamaCare is truly killed, it can always be revived.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.