Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

... House Dems demand ObamaCare fix from White House aides in “heated” meeting; Update: “It’s ugly”
Hot Air ^ | 2:31 pm on November 13, 2013 | by Allahpundit

Posted on 11/14/2013 11:45:56 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach

Here’s your early-afternoon reminder that these people are either (a) imbeciles who didn’t understand when they voted for O-Care that mass cancellations were part of the plan or (b) lying schmucks who understood it full well but who are too gutless to take the heat now that it’s happening.

Did somebody here order the schadenfreude?

A private meeting on Capitol Hill with House Democrats and White House officials on Wednesday became heated when rank-and-file members expressed frustration about continued Obamacare problems, according to multiple sources in the room.

One congressional Democrat who attended the meeting said senior Obama administration officials Mike Hash and David Simas really “got hit” by House Democrats about everything from the troubled website to the broken promise that people can keep the insurance plans they like…

Several lawmakers — even liberals who adamantly support Obamacare — stood and warned the officials that the White House must come up with a solution before the vote [on Fred Upton's "Keep Your Plan Act"]…

Democratic Rep. Jose Serrano of New York told reporters he thinks something will “develop over the next 24 hours.”

And for dessert: ***************

"Embedded Tweet" style="display: block; max-width: 99%; min-width: 220px; padding: 0px; border-radius: 5px; margin: 10px 0px; border-width: 1px; border-style: solid; border-color: rgb(238, 238, 238) rgb(221, 221, 221) rgb(187, 187, 187); -moz-border-top-colors: none; -moz-border-right-colors: none; -moz-border-bottom-colors: none; -moz-border-left-colors: none; border-image: none; box-shadow: 0px 1px 3px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.15); position: static; visibility: visible;" class="twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered" allowtransparency="true" id="twitter-widget-2" height="187" scrolling="no" width="500" frameborder="0">

The fact that they also screamed about the website and didn’t emerge from the meeting conciliated makes me think the White House’s denial this morning about missing the November 30th deadline was indeed just a pro forma thing designed to buy time before admitting final defeat. As for the sturm and drang over Fred Upton’s and Mary Landrieu’s bills, Obama has two potential failsafes. Harry Reid could kill Landrieu’s bill in the Senate so that no one has a chance to vote on it, but red-state Democrats like Mark Pryor, Kay Hagan, and of course Landrieu herself won’t like that. They need to do something to show their constituents that they’re trying to get plans un-canceled; if Reid doesn’t let them, he may end up as the Senate minority leader in 2015. If he brings the bill to the floor, though, it might very well reach 60 votes and pass — and he won’t be able to count on Boehner and the GOP killing it in the House. None other than Fred Upton himself said today that Landrieu’s bill might actually be better than his own. If it gets through the Senate, I assume Boehner will bring it to a vote in the House just to maximize the humiliation for Obama as Democrats cross the aisle en masse to vote for it.

That would leave Obama with his last failsafe — a presidential veto. But that too would be hugely risky for Democrats, even ones who voted for Landrieu’s bill. For better or worse, the president is the figurehead of his party. When his approval ratings end up in the tank, so too do the fortunes of his party’s congressional members in the midterms. If he vetoes it, the GOP will destroy him for singlehandedly condemning millions of canceled consumers to their new, more expensive plans. If he signs it, though, he’s willingly sabotaging ObamaCare in the name of protecting his party. Remember: By bringing back canceled plans, both Upton’s bill and Landrieu’s bill are destroying the economic assumptions on which the new, post-ObamaCare insurance regime has been built. The only way O-Care works is by moving healthy people into new, more expensive coverage; if you let them return to their old plans, there’s no new revenue to cover preexisting conditions that insurers are now legally required to pay for. In fact, Landrieu’s bill is even worse for the law than Upton’s is because it requires insurers to bring back canceled plans rather than giving them the option and it would operate indefinitely rather than just for 2014. It’s not as comprehensive as a bill to repeal O-Care outright would be, but it’s a step in that direction by making the new economics of health insurance unsustainable. So that’s O’s choice if this lands on his desk. Either he can knife consumers with canceled policies in the back by confirming that he never meant for them to keep their plans or he can knife his pals in the insurance industry in the bank by validating the giant mess that Landrieu’s trying to make for them. Government health-care fever — catch it.

Update: Schmucktastic.

“They’re telling us all about actuarial tables and all about how the process would work and all of this is fine and great and it would be great in a classroom and you would get an A on your test, but this isn’t about getting an A on your test, this is about ads,” said Rep. Steve Cohen, a Memphis liberal…

“It’s ugly,” said one Democratic source in the meeting. “There’s no way Obama and Pelosi will let their legacy go down in flames. I just wouldn’t want to be from a swing district right now. Or anything that closely resembles one.”…

If they stand with the White House on Friday’s vote, they face the worst of all possible worlds: Campaign ads pointing out that they not only backed Obama’s broken promise but also opposed legislation to fix it. The White House has two days, they warned, to come up with an alternative way to ensure Americans aren’t thrown off their health plans. The president has vowed to find an administrative fix—rather than a legislative one—but that has proved difficult so far.

If O-Care starts to fall apart because House Dems begin voting with the GOP en masse, that’s its epitaph. This isn’t about risk pools and premiums and egghead stuff that might conceivably make the law sustainable in the near term at least. “This is about ads.”


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: obamacare
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-45 next last

1 posted on 11/14/2013 11:45:56 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

This is just like that guy Taylor in Mr-Smith-Goes-to-Washington. Except, a million times worse.


2 posted on 11/14/2013 11:48:02 AM PST by C210N (When people fear government there is tyranny; when government fears people there is liberty)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

dem on dem “violence” can’t get ugly enough to satisfy me.


3 posted on 11/14/2013 11:49:24 AM PST by WayneS (No problem is so great that it cannot be made worse by a "progressive" solution.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

I’ll go with door #2 - lying schmucks who understood it full well but who are too gutless to take the heat now that it’s happening.


4 posted on 11/14/2013 11:49:43 AM PST by driftdiver (I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

Their phones must be melting —


5 posted on 11/14/2013 11:49:54 AM PST by Uncle Chip
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
Just PRAY that – UNLIKE LAST TIME – enough voters with actual FUNCTIONING BRAINS show up at the polls to send these MORONS packing!
 photo LIBTURDDRAINTINY_zpscfad8f43.jpg

6 posted on 11/14/2013 11:51:20 AM PST by Dick Bachert (Ignorance is NOT BLISS. It is the ROAD TO SERFDOM! We're on a ROAD TRIP!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

“really “got hit” by House Democrats about everything from the troubled website to the broken promise that people can keep the insurance plans they like…”

Well, maybe the dumb*sses should have READ THE BILL!

They are either idiots or liars! Take you pick (or both).


7 posted on 11/14/2013 11:52:29 AM PST by kcvl
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: WayneS

I think we need to order several truckloads of POPCORN. This is better than a Soap Opera on TV. Liberals vs. Liberals brings a smile to my face =)


8 posted on 11/14/2013 11:54:32 AM PST by Patriot Babe
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
“. I just wouldn’t want to be from a swing district right now.”

Serves them right for supporting an IDIOT...

They deserve to go down in flames for supporting this crap and trying to tell us it was dessert!

9 posted on 11/14/2013 11:55:34 AM PST by kcvl
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: driftdiver

ya lying gutless schmucks but,
pretty dumb too.


10 posted on 11/14/2013 11:56:50 AM PST by genghis
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

I say “all or nothing”...either repeal the (entire) horrible turd of a law, or OWN it 100% AS IS, and line up for your shellacking (sp?) in the 2014 polls. IOW, pack your shite.

Oh wait, they’ll just rig the polls and “win” anyhow. Never mind.


11 posted on 11/14/2013 11:57:15 AM PST by Mich Patriot (PITCH BLACK is the new "transparent")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

I’ve read in other posts that there is no way the government can force the insurance companies to reinstate those canceled plans. If they are thinking about subsidizing the insurance companies to cover this the price is going to wipe out the entire GDP. I so pray this goes down in flames and takes the entire progressive movement down with it - we can only hope.


12 posted on 11/14/2013 11:59:47 AM PST by Lake Living
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Ernest_at_the_Beach; a fool in paradise

Voted on 2,000+ page legislation that no living person had read, allowed 30,000 pages of unsupervised regulations, that no person read in 5%, now they’re surprised!


13 posted on 11/14/2013 12:00:42 PM PST by Revolting cat! (Bad things are wrong! Ice cream is delicious!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

Isn’t that nice of Fred Upton and the rest of the GOPe to give the Dems a life line. The stupid RINOS are always thinking that the country wants both sides to compromise. When a Republican president screws up (George HW Bush and his “read my lips” comment is what I’m thinking) the Dems don’t throw a lifeline to Reps. They throw a left and right hook to their faces and take full political advantage of the miscue. Our side needs to stop this nonsense of bailing out the libs. They made this mess and now they need to suffer for it.


14 posted on 11/14/2013 12:00:58 PM PST by dowcaet
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: driftdiver
I’ll go with door #2 - lying schmucks who understood it full well but who are too gutless to take the heat now that it’s happening.

Do any of them read anything but liberal sources? I guess not, because we Freepers knew this years ago.

15 posted on 11/14/2013 12:01:17 PM PST by Freee-dame
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: kcvl

They read it and thought their king would protect them from any fallout. At some point obama will throw them all under the bus to get this monstrosity into place and hope the idiot republicans nominate Christie so it will remain in place damning America into oblivion when Hillary wins in 16.


16 posted on 11/14/2013 12:02:19 PM PST by sarge83
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
Kabuki theater.

1.) Obamacare is meant to fail to bring in full nationalization.

2.) What can the House Democrats do to Obama? He's not running for re-election and will live in luxury behind a wall of Secret Service for the rest of his life. He couldn't care less about those nobodies.

17 posted on 11/14/2013 12:02:38 PM PST by Count of Monte Fisto (The foundation of modern society is the denial of reality.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Lake Living
I Agree!
18 posted on 11/14/2013 12:11:22 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

This is almost....almost....as good as sex!!!


19 posted on 11/14/2013 12:11:23 PM PST by ontap
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Lake Living
If they are thinking about subsidizing the insurance

Conventional wisdom is they can't do this because to get the money they would have to get it through the house....rutrow!!!

20 posted on 11/14/2013 12:14:03 PM PST by ontap
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-45 next last

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.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson