Posted on 03/12/2017 1:53:28 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Sen. Ted Cruz’s unyielding opposition to the Affordable Care Act and his willingness to publicly take the fight to fellow Republicans helped cause a brief government shutdown four years ago. But now, with a Republican in the White House and repeal legislation working its way through Congress, the Texas Republican is keeping a low profile, putting his head down and working back rooms to influence the legislation.
Cruz has expressed serious concerns about the bill, the American Health Care Act, released by House Republicans this week and approved by two committees Thursday. His fellow Senate conservatives Rand Paul and Mike Lee have railed against it publicly – Paul dubbed it “Obamacare Lite” and Lee said it was a “step in the wrong direction.” The two joined members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus at a press conference Tuesday to amplify their opposition.
But while Cruz shares the same concerns, he was absent from that press conference, and has not been nearly as vocal in his criticism as his House or Senate colleagues. When a reporter asked if he agreed with the “Obamacare Lite” label, Cruz responded: “I’m not interested in labels; I’m interested in substance.”
He has said he doesn’t believe the bill as written in the House can pass the Senate, but insisted he’s working to push it in a more conservative direction.
“I’m working hard to have these conversations with leaders in both houses and the administration rather than to litigate every one of these details in public,” Cruz told reporters Thursday after a meeting with a handful of GOP senators in Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office. “I am hopeful we can get the job done, and that is my objective."
It’s a notable departure from the Cruz of the Obama administration....
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
6 million people lost health insurance they were paying for when democrats passed Obamacare in 2010, now democrats are carping that 6 million people will lose health insurance provided for “free” by we the taxpayers.
Medicaid expansion is and was a ponzie scheme. Kill it now. Full and final repeal or do nothing at all.
No way to make everyone happy but reality is something we need to learn to deal with.
Yes, give back the $7+ Billion ACA stole from Medicare. And all those IOU’s congress left after they stole the money they never intended to replace.
And for those of us who are stuck with Medicare and Tricare Life, let us get additional coverage for what those 2 crap RATIONED plans don’t cover or expand it to cover them with co-pays. Hearing aids, dental, vision. And let us upgrade scheduled medical procedures like cataract implants to better lenses from our pockets for that part. Just pay the basic surgery and crap lens cost, let us pay for the upgrade. And if the doc screws it up, we get Lasix to fix it as a covered medical expense not as a ‘cosmetic’. Because it is not ‘cosmetic’ then, but medical need, you can’t remove bad/wrong cataract implants. I’ve just gone through this crap of paying for Lasix for a wrong cataract implant fix, that is $5K plus the $600+ for multi focal glasses I’ll still need, when they decide I’m ready. No coverage for it.
Kick all non US Citizens off Medicaid. And illegals out of the USA.
There is a gigantic amount of hard work going on here as part of the process. The various parts that come to mind:
The bills passed by the house and senate by simple majority must first go through the critical committees, and conform to the requirements to go to a conference committee. Then they have to be “whipped” to insure the simple majorities to pass them once they go back to the house and the senate, based on changes made in the conference committee.
Then off for President Trump’s signature.
But *then*, and probably what senator Cruz is working on right now, something that has to start at the beginning of the process and go all the way through, is to make sure that it will pass muster with the SCOTUS. This is not easy, but Cruz knows the law well enough to hopefully make it bulletproof.
But it doesn’t even end there. It will likely require that the 12 annual house appropriations bills scrub every part of Obamacare that was inserted into them. This means a huge effort in a bunch of different committees in the house.
Once the house appropriations bills are sent to the senate, they will also have to get through the morass of their committees, then again to conference committee.
The Obamacare “punching a hole in the Titanic” was the easy part. Fixing the hole before the ship sinks is what the Republicans are trying to do.
From a practical standpoint, it looks like the liberals have won this issue. When the argument is about what a federal government health care bill contains rather than whether there should be a federal health care bill at all, the issue is lost.
Is that like the polls that showed Trump losing badly last October?
Ryan’s PowerPoint was pathetic. It was based on the big lie that they can’t repeal (and replace, if need be) through reconciliation this spring.
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.