Posted on 03/26/2017 11:57:37 AM PDT by blueplum
The behind-the-scenes story of the staredown between a few dozen conservative true believers and a novice president.
....In a conference room in the Rayburn House Office Building, the group met that evening and made a secret pact. No member would commit his vote before consulting with the entire group — not even if Trump himself called to ask for an on-the-spot commitment. The idea, hatched by Freedom Caucus Vice Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), was to bind them together in negotiations and ensure the White House or House leaders could not peel them off one by one. Twenty-eight of the group's roughly three dozen members took the plunge. Three weeks later, Republican leaders, as many as 25 votes short of passage, were forced to pull their bill from the House floor. “This is a defining moment for our nation, but it's also a defining moment for the Freedom Caucus,” said group leader Mark Meadows about a week before the doomed vote was scheduled. “I don't think there's a more critical vote for the Freedom Caucus than this." The unpublicized pledge sowed the seeds of Friday’s collapse of ....
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
The Phase 2 and Phase 3 made no sense to me. If HHS Secretary has such unbridled power and makes the proposed changes..then what happens when a Lib is elected...Single Payer? No thanks..Trump promised Repeal..not Repeal and replace with same.
I'm actually in a small group of people who is better off under ObamaCare than I would have been under the Ryan bill (go figure) ... and yet I would have loved to see Ryan's bill succeed if it was a political winner.
Would you be posting the same nonsense if Donald Trump was lining up behind the Republican House and Senate leadership to pass a massive immigration amnesty bill?
Ok, we repeal it. How long until the insurance companies restructure? Do we pay them to restructure? Or expect them to do it on their own? What guarantee do we have they will want to offer individual policies? Or ala carte policies? How soon would the policies be for sale to the public? Will the premiums be lower? Is there any mechanism that allows the government to micromanage the profit margins of a free market business?
What if the insurance companies decide, screw it, it's too hard to do business in the US, we're headed to China? Or, we'll sell to Kansas but not California or NY? Anybody even talk to them and maybe get a promise or two? I remember dealing with companies in the 90s - it was the HR person's worst nightmare every year. Do companies have to eat the expense of hiring insurance negotiators? What's federally deductible?
Where is the FC master plan for all this ‘repeal only’? And if they don't have one, why not? Why promote the concept? They've had 2 years at least to come up with something other than bullet points. Can we see it? How long would surgeries be delayed? What about working pre-existing who've paid different insurance companies for decades. Do we lump them in with the illegals in substandard medic-aid? Is that all they mean to Republicans now? Thanks for decades of votes now die? When did we become so ruthless?
This ‘repeal it now’ thing is just confusing to everyone because nobody knows the logistics, or if we're just being snookered into eating ourselves. Repeal only isn't the platform Trump ran on, so why insist he betray his promise before his chair is broken in?
Bernie just made a move to socialize healthcare. And I'm convinced the states can use their sovereignty to socialize healthcare. So the FC better make a counter move that razzles and dazzles us, it's so great, and they better make it fast, or the Dems will end up the heros with a voting block locked in for the next 18 years at least, and that will be the end of us.
8 years getting there, 1 shot at it.
It’s not just about free markets, its also about a governing majority. Many of the moderate members in favor of the bill and who opposed the HFC demands are in states where Hillary won and who are up for election a year from now. If they lose their seats there may not be a House Republican majority come 2018.
This is why the three-phase approach laid out in the Ryan plan was so ludicrous. Why would the whole "fix" rely on a Phase 3 that was never going to happen? Do you think any of these moderates were going to be more likely to vote for a true health care reform bill in 2019, 2020, or any year after that?
Why would you want conservative Republicans to betray their constituents (and their principles) just to protect the political futures of moderates in states that Hillary Clinton won?
I live in a state that Hillary Clinton won. My own Republican Congressman announced that he was opposed to the Ryan bill. When is Donald Trump going to send out a Twitter message sarcastically thanking him for preserving ObamaCare and Planned Parenthood funding?
Ted Poe just resigned from the FC, concerned about the ethics of how the FC acted
No we don’t pay them. But we can get rid of any and all roadblocks at the federal level blocking or impeding free markets.
Hey, we either do this or we fold up our constitutional tent and become a Godless socialist (communist) state.
“Tell me about it”
We had something similar when I was younger. My father and me had a small remodeling company. We were both covered under my mother’s Blue Cross/Blue Shield plan until, I think,I was 18...after that I went many years without coverage.
Correct me if I am wrong but, you being a veteran, I would think you would have had VA coverage?
Anyway, as far as my brother, I think the problem was he made too much to qualify under any state programs, and that would be the case today as well. This is not an endorsement of ObamaCare like plans, I don’t know enough to make that call, but how do you stay true to 100% free market, when the free market won’t even look at my brother?
There has to be millions out there just like my brother, and this group never gets the media attention...they are lost in the cracks!
i much don’t give a CRAP about re-elections, protecting ANYONE.
The deductibles and costs of HealthCare are UP thanx2 ObammyCare and they wanted to pass a crap sandwich that didn’t do a DAMN thing to repeal.
Cry me a river. REPEAL. Free Markets will decide the rest.
AND don’t give me that CRAP about ooooh, the ones that will lose their healthcare if we just repeal.... Cry me a f’n river.
Many of the “purists” here on FR have this damn the torpedoes gusto. Well, the Trump Hindenburg just took a strike thanks to the obstinacy of the HFC.
The saddest part is not only did the virtue signalling Freedom Caucus members badly damage POTUS’s entire conservative agenda but they didn’t get anything in return. We’re still stuck in Obamacare hell like a beltway version of Waiting for Godot. Not that the exempt beltway gum flappers in the Freedom Caucus care one bit about that.
Precisely.
Free Market means voluntary payment of other’s health bills.
Your example left out the overhead taken by government, insurance companies, all the middle men (including me).
Right now we need a massive education program for the public (maybe in targeted districts) for
Provider Direct Pay Plans
Medishare Plans
Charitable Organizations.
Pour massive amounts of money into the above 3 non-insurance approaches. Price and Verma change all the regulations to be pro-patient rather than pro-insurance company/pro-CMS.
Now the money and mandatory debates become totally different.
Of course, Tort Reform is still a major issue Congress and State Legislatures should address. We control a lot of state legislatures where the RINOs are taking Democrat lawyer money to avoid Tort Reform.
And politically, we need to narrow focus our targets to those we can win... This must include targeting some Democrats in swing districts as well as targeting a few RINOs.
“Freedom Caucus members badly damage POTUS’s entire conservative agenda but they didn’t get anything in return.”
Trump could fix that in one second. Demand Lyin’ Ryan’s resignation. Point that Finger. Start over. IF DJT decides to allow that snake to continue, then it’s HIS own dam fault!
He was a marginal member anyway, he has become a supporter of amnesty
Bulls***
I stand with the Freedom Caucus. I stand with Trump. I DON'T stand with the RINOs and Paul Ryan. And I won't stand with Trump if he morphs into John Kasich. Capiche?
Now wait just a minute.
What, pray tell, would the President have been morphing into if he did get this "Obamacare lite" legislation passed and then signed it?
Are you saying that President Trump is "morphing into the swamp" because this bill failed?
I don't get the logic. Please, elaborate...
Well Done!
well, I hope you didn’t count on the FC doing just a repeal, because they apparently told Trump they wanted a repeal now, and a replace, approved by them, in the future.
“Some only want to be the party of ‘no’ & would’ve voted against the 10 commandments,” Poe tweeted.
If the Repubikan party was serious about repealing Obamacare...If they were serious about saving the republic, restoring the rule law, and helping the American people, they wouldn’t have Paul Ryan as speaker.
They wouldn’t have FUNDED the O’muslim coup for 6 years...
The entire party, save a handful of people, are COMPLETE FRAUDS
What don’t you MORONS understand about that?
Repeal it, then lets talk.
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