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.
Your nuts, the party in power is never blamed when something goes wrong -— sarc of course!
Get it right according to whom? The Freedom Caucus, which comprises 15% of the Reps? You seem to be ignoring the process questions of what it means that we only have 52 Rep senators and a sizeable number of them are RINOs. We had 14 Rep senators vote for the Gang of 8 bill.
How do you achieve "unconditional repeal" both process wise and politically. There are 14 million now covered under Obamacare with about nine million on expanded Medicaid. You need to come with a consensus solution to deal with those who lose Obamacare coverage. You also must deal with several features that the majority of Americans like, e.g., keeping your child on your insurance plan until age 26, you can't be turned down for insurance if you have a preexisting condition; etc.
So how do you kill it?
Here is what will happen: Schumer and Hoyer have expressed a desire to work with Trump to fix some of the problems with Obamacare. They want to mend it, not end it in much the same way that many Reps would really like to do to avoid a political confrontation.
The continued implosion of Obamacare will cause the public to demand that the problems be fixed. The Dems and some Reps would be happy to accommodate them. Trump could use the leverage to make desired changes with Dem support and aid the average Americans who are being hurt by the system. Trump could say that he tried the GOP way to fix the problem and it didn't work. Now a bipartisan effort is called for to make Obamacare work. Now it is no longer a disaster that needs to be repealed.
This is not outlandish. The Reps have already aided the Dems in making more than 100 fixes to keep Obamacare working.
New poll shows Americans want to fix Obamacare, not end it, while Koch groups push for full repeal
Fully 68% of Americans want to keep what works and fix the rest, while just 32% prefer the GOP's repeal and replace approach, according to polling from Hart Research. Moreover, the polling showed most Americans — including 54% of President Trump's voters — have a favorable view of the Medicaid system, which would face steep cuts under the Republican plan.
I wasn’t clear enough. I stand with the HFC on their “Nay” stance on Obamacare-lite.
I will stand with them when their stand is conservative.
FReeRegards,
FMOKM
The libertarian caucus is responsible for Obamacare remaining. The are supposed to be in the Republican Caucus. They voted for Speaker Ryan. About two thirds of them showed themselves to be Republicans In Name Only. Libertarianism is a political disorder like liberalism. Their intentions are good but the outcome is not good.
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