Free Republic

Republicans are about to do something very stupid. Using bribery, threats and cajolery, they intend to pass a catastrophically unpopular bill on a party-line vote. GOP: Obamacare is unpopular, so let's pass a new health care bill that's even MORE unpopular. Normal Person: Why would you do that? GOP: No, you don't understand. Obamacare is totally imploding, so if we pass this bill now, all its problems will be blamed on us! Republicans would be better off doing nothing. They can survive the ridicule for running against Obamacare through four election cycles and then not repealing it. They cannot survive...

RUSH: By the way, folks, while all of this is going on, the health care bill status over in the Senate’s looking very, very bad. You see what Rand Paul has said? Has a written a piece — I saw it at Breitbart — and I think he’s trying to get people’s attention with this. But he’s saying if anybody’s paying attention, Obamacare is staying, the essential health benefits are staying, Obamacare taxes are staying, nobody wants to do anything about it, and it’s all a bunch of smoke and mirrors. The insurance companies are gonna have to be bailed...

RUSH: This is a fascinating poll result. It’s IBD, Investor’s Business Daily. Headline: “People Like The Senate Health Bill More Than They Realize — Just 33% of the public say they approve of the Senate plan to repeal and replace Obamacare and 62% oppose it, the latest IBD/TIPP Poll finds. However, many of the specific provisions in the Senate bill get majority support. … Unlike other polls, the IBD/TIPP Poll restricted its findings on the Republicans’ Obamacare replacement plans to the 77% who say they’ve been following the health care debate closely.” So this poll is not include people unfamiliar...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is rejecting President Trump's suggestion on how the Senate could promptly pass its ObamaCare overhaul measure -- by immediately repealing the 2010 heath care law and replacing it later. snip He also riffed on Trump’s winning campaign slogan, saying, "It's not easy making America great again, is it?"

Senate Republicans are considering dropping a tax break for the wealthy from their ObamaCare repeal bill as they seek to secure 50 votes for the legislation. Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) on Thursday said the bill would be changed to increase the subsidies that help lower-income people afford health insurance. The most likely way for that to happen is by keeping a 3.8 percent tax on investment income for high earners, Corker said. “We will it appears, address the issue of ensuring lower-income citizens are in a position to buy plans that are actually provide them appropriate healthcare,” Corker said. To...

Sen. Elizabeth Warren said Tuesday that opposing the Republican health-care bill wasn't enough and the Democratic Party should start running on a new national single-payer plan. "President Obama tried to move us forward with health-care coverage by using a conservative model that came from one of the conservative think tanks that had been advanced by a Republican governor in Massachusetts," she told The Wall Street Journal. "Now it's time for the next step. And the next step is single payer." Polling has shown government-provided health care to be a very popular notion among Americans. Depending on whether it's described as...

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker cautioned that a health care bill proposed by U.S. Senate Republicans would cost 264,000 state residents their health coverage and have a cumulative negative impact of more than $8.2 billion on the state by 2025, while Sen. Edward Markey described defeating the bill as the legislative fight of his life. In a letter to the state's all-Democrat Congressional delegation, Baker, a Republican, wrote that the bill would "increasingly strain the state's fiscal resources, result in greater numbers of individuals without insurance and destabilize the commercial insurance market." He separately joined Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe in urging...

Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” while discussing the Republican health care bill, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said he would vote for a partial repeal of Obamacare, but the current bill was “not anywhere close to repeal.” Paul said, “I’ve been telling leadership for months now that I will vote for a repeal and it doesn’t have to be a 100 percent repeal. For example, I’m for 100 percent repeal, that’s what I want, but if you offer me a 90 percent repeal, I’d probably vote for it. I might vote for 80 percent repeal.”

Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview that he thinks the Senate healthcare bill “looks too much like Obamacare.” Senator Rand Paul joined Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT), Ron Johnson (R-WI), and Ted Cruz (R-TX) in opposition to the Senate bill. The coalition of conservative senators argue that the legislation does not do enough to repeal Obamacare. Senator Paul explained his opposition to the newly released Senate healthcare bill: I think the bill looks too much like Obamacare. It really doesn’t look like a repeal bill. It looks like we’re keeping Obamacare, it keeps probably 100 percent...

A group of at least three Republican senators are planning to openly oppose the newly-released Republican health care bill, NBC's Chuck Todd reported Thursday. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) released the text of the bill Thursday after more than a month of speculation. "For the past seven years, Obamacare has continued to hurt the people we represent," McConnell said on the Senate floor. "For the past seven years, Republicans have offered ideas for a better way forward. And soon, we will finally have the chance to turn the page on this failing law." But the host of "Meet...

Senate Republican leaders released a healthcare bill Thursday that overhauls Medicaid, scraps most of Obamacare's taxes and alters tax credits available to individuals to purchase health insurance. The Senate discussion draft unveiled Thursday is the chamber's response to the American Health Care Act, which passed the House last month. Like the House bill, the Senate version guts Obamacare's controversial individual and employer mandates.

Few provisions within Obamacare have proved less popular than the individual mandate, which requires all Americans to secure insurance or pay a fine. Unfortunately, some Senate Republicans are proposing a replacement that's even worse. As part of their bid to repeal Obamacare, Sens. Bill Cassidy, R-La., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, want to allow states to automatically enroll the uninsured in health plans. At least Obamacare let people choose whether to buy health insurance or not. Sens. Cassidy and Collins are calling for an even heavier dose of government paternalism, one that would increase federal spending, line the pockets of insurers,...

Senate Republican leaders outlined a “very liberal” ObamaCare replacement bill during their weekly lunch with their members on Tuesday, sources said. “The moderates are very happy,” an aide to Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), one of the Senate’s most conservative members, told The Post. “It was a very liberal bill.” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told reporters that the upper chamber is “getting very close to having a proposal to whip and to take to the floor” on health care. His comments came after the leaders met with President Trump at the White House to discuss health care reform. According...

Washington • Just days after launching a new political action committee, former Democratic Vice President Joe Biden will join Republican officials and donors at a weekend retreat hosted by former GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney. Biden will be interviewed by Romney during a Friday evening event in Park City, at the invitation-only summit, according to a Biden spokesman and participants briefed on the schedule. The speaker lineup for what is traditionally a gathering of Romney allies is packed with high-profile Republicans, among them House Speaker Paul Ryan and Sens. Lindsey Graham and John McCain.

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...

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

Csting his ObamaCare replacement bill as the only chance to save America from a complete health-care collapse, Speaker Paul Ryan Sunday countered his conservative critics who say the bill fails to make good on Republicans' promise to repeal ObamaCare. "Understand the speaker’s plan doesn’t repeal ObamaCare," a member of the House Republicans' Freedom Caucus, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), said Sunday. "Even Charles Krauthammer said that, called it ObamaCare Lite, as you said earlier. It doesn’t bring down premiums and it doesn’t unite Republicans. So, why not do what we all voted for just 15 months ago, clean repeal, and then...

DANA LOESCH: I think it's an insult. It's an insult to the American people and it's an insult to the Trump administration for Republicans, Congressional Republicans to deliver this bill to his desk. They are the ones who are endangering this new administration and I can't bold, italicized, underline that anymore. In 2015, Jim Jordan had a fantastic bill that went way further than anything that this bill is doing and it actually lowered prices instead of increasing prices, which is what this 'Obamacare 2.0' bill does and I don't know why, for the life of me, they will not...