Free Republic

From the 3-minute video: "If the Republican Party does not repeal Obamacare, what the hell is the Republican Party for?"

Standing at a bus stop in Paris recently, I noticed an advertisement for Médecins du Monde, Doctors of the World, a charity similar to the more famous Médecins Sans Frontières. “Liberty, equality, health,” it proclaimed: in other words, health replaced fraternity in the trio of French republican virtues (or aspirations). At the bottom of the ad were two additional slogans: HEALTH FOR ALL RIGHTS FOR EVERYONE But what could health for all possibly mean? Health even for the dying? Or immortality, perhaps?........ What goes for money, however, also goes for health. The healthy man and the paralyzed have equally the...

House GOP leaders are expressing confidence that the Republican-sponsored American Health Care Act (AHCA) to repeal and replace Obamacare will pass Thursday afternoon, though it will face an uncertain path in the Senate. House vote on the new health care bill - how to watch "This will pass," House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-California, told reporters as he left a closed-door meeting with the House Republican Conference. House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-Louisiana, also seemed confident that the bill would pass.

Nail biter? I’m thinking it will be close no matter what, but last time around they never even got to a vote because support was tanking right up to the time it was supposed to happen, and finally Paul Ryan pulled the bill because the failure was going to be monumental. This time? Do they know for sure that they’ve got the votes? And if so, what did they do to the bill to get there? Thursday suddenly got tense, friends: The latest iteration of the GOP bill would let states escape a current requirement that insurers charge healthy and...

Their timidity on Obamacare repeal has made them a national laughingstock. "....Yet the party that ended slavery and successfully championed women’s suffrage, both in the face of violent Democratic opposition, can’t muster the courage to repeal even the worst provisions of the Affordable Care Act. This cowardice has now inspired the law’s apologists to openly mock the GOP and President Trump."

"We're going to go when we have the votes," Speaker Paul Ryan said Thursday when asked when the House will pass a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare. Lawmakers will not be constrained by any "artificial deadline," Ryan declared. On March 24, when the Speaker pulled the GOP Obamacare bill before what would have been a sure defeat, he said, "We're going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future." But why? Republicans have 238 seats in the House. Repealing Obamacare will require 217 votes. Even with unanimous Democratic opposition, Republicans could lose 21 votes and still prevail on...

Republican legislators in the House of Representatives have pushed back a vote to repeal Obamacare until next week, it was reported on Thursday. That means President Donald Trump's hopes for a major legislative 'win' before the expiration of his first 100 days in office appear to be on life support. Trump was eager to resuscitate an earlier Republican bid to pass a health care bill that would have replaced the Affordable Care Act, the signature piece of legislation passed by his predecessor, Barack Obama.< But House Speaker Paul Ryan and his senior GOP colleagues failed to muster the necessary number...

The tide is quickly turning against the new ObamaCare repeal legislation. At least 21 Republicans have said they would vote no on the revised GOP healthcare bill negotiated by centrist Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-N.J.) and conservative Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.). Those "no" votes include Reps. Patrick Meehan (Pa.), Ryan Costello (Pa.), Barbara Comstock (R-Va.), Jaime Herrera Beutler (Wash.) and John Katko (N.Y.), all centrists who had reservations about the previous ObamaCare repeal bill that was pulled from a floor vote last month because of a lack of GOP support.

Health Care: As Republicans stumble around in search of a way to repeal ObamaCare, they should look to the states for answers. After all, several of them had to find solutions when their ObamaCare-like reforms started to fail. The GOP has apparently decided that, despite the problems it causes, any ObamaCare repeal plan must keep the core feature of ObamaCare — its protections for those with pre-existing conditions. Are they not aware that several states have already gone through this exercise before, and that many ended up abandoning these very protections after their insurance markets started to implode? In the...

Republican leaders and high-powered donors in Utah are waging a quiet but concerted campaign to convince 83-year-old incumbent Senator Orrin Hatch not to seek reelection next year—and now, they may have found a successor. Mitt Romney, the one-time presidential nominee and leading Trump critic, is exploring a run for Hatch’s Senate seat. According to six sources familiar with the situation, Romney has spent recent weeks actively discussing a potential 2018 Senate bid with a range of high-level Republicans in both Utah and Washington, and has privately signaled a growing interest in the idea. Romney, though, has made clear he would...

Chris Wallace Interview of Jim Jordan. Jim Jordan: "Let's accomplish what the people asked us to do when they sent us to Washington . . . let's find a plan that is consistent with what the American people told us to do when they elected us."

Bad move by Trump. Ryan and the globalist big government GOPe RINOs are the problem not the Freedom Caucus. Trump is supposed to be draining the swamp by now, not swimming in it. Put the interest of American citizens first! Freedom not socialism and tyranny!! Good grief! Dump Obamacare already! Should have been done on day one and we’d be way on down the road to draining the swamp by now! We the people have been demanding a full repeal for seven long years and that's the position Trump took with his original health care goal at the beginning of...

“Seven years after enactment of Obamacare, I wanted to support legislation that made positive changes to rescue healthcare in America. “Unfortunately, the legislation before the House today is currently unacceptable as it would place significant new costs and barriers to care on my constituents in New Jersey.

The GOP has had 7 years to work on the repeal of Obamacare and now that they have full control, they still can’t seem to get anything done. We want Obamacare repealed now! NBC reports: The House of Representatives delayed its vote on repealing and replacing parts of the Affordable Care Act after Republican leaders failed to rally enough support to pass the bill, sources told CNBC. The GOP House caucus will meet at 7 p.m. ET on Thursday to discuss its path forward, NBC News reported. A vote on the legislation is still possible on Friday, NBC said. The...

Just breaking on Fox Business.....no vote.

If the Republican's ObamaCare replacement plan ends up looking an awful lot like ObamaCare, here's one reason why: Prominent conservatives have already conceded defeat. In his latest column, Charles Krauthammer declared that "For all its catastrophic flaws, ObamaCare changed expectations. Does any Republican propose returning to a time when you can be denied health insurance because of a pre-existing condition?" Another well-known conservative commentator, George Will, wrote almost exactly the same thing in his column that just posted. "It is unknowable whether Barack Obama produced an American consensus in favor of a government obligation to guarantee universal access to health...

Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump is personally calling individual members of the influential conservative House Freedom Caucus Wednesday evening as House leaders work on a possible deal to secure the votes to pass the GOP health care bill.

President Trump, who promised to totally repeal Obamacare, is threatening Republicans with political retribution if they do not support the House bill which would leave the worst elements of Obamacare intact. The House bill does a few good things -- it eliminates the individual mandate to buy insurance, and relieves employers of the costly burden of providing insurance for their workers. But, mostly, the worst parts of Obamacare stay in effect. ****SNIP**** And President Trump is threatening any Republican who votes against it. President Trump on Tuesday turned up the pressure on recalcitrant Republicans to support a sweeping bill to...

House Speaker Paul Ryan's ambitious tax overhaul relies on an import tax concept originally developed by a Berkeley economist who once advised Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. Alan J. Auerbach is the director of the Robert D. Burch Center for Tax Policy and Public Finance at the University of California, Berkeley. He served as an economic counselor to Kerry during his 2004 presidential campaign. He also happens to be known as the godfather of "border adjustability," the linchpin of the tax reform plan that Ryan, a conservative Wisconsin Republican, is attempting to sell to the White House and push through...

just mentioned on Rush at the top of the 2pm eastern hour