Posted on 03/24/2017 6:53:32 AM PDT by MaxistheBest
Reports from Capitol Hill today indicate rising exasperation among old-school conservatives about the shifting, raise-the-ante, refuse-to-say-"yes" demands from most members of the House Freedom Caucus, with regard to the upcoming vote on the House Republican healthcare bill.
The exasperation is well-justified.
The House Freedom Caucus is clearly driven by outside groups such as Heritage Action, which has become such an all-or-nothing, my-way-or-the-highway outfit that it makes Patrick Henry look like a compromising squish. It seems as if every concession made to the Freedom Caucus is met with a new demand.
I just returned from a barbecue place in conservative Mobile, Ala., where a longtime Republican activist stopped me and asked: "Are we going to get a health bill? Are these guys in Congress ever going to prove they can govern? Will they ever know when to get to 'yes'? Are we ever going to stop making the perfect the enemy of the good?" This was a conservative stalwart in deep-red Alabama, not a centrist Long Island inheritor – and even he was disgusted by the House Freedom Caucus' behavior.
The House leadership's original bill contained a lot of good features but doubtless left much to be desired. Its policy mix was poorly cobbled together; the political groundwork for it was nearly non-existent; and the public relations surrounding its release was slow, muted and confused. But since then, the Trump White House and the leadership team have made yeomen's efforts to improve the bill. They have listened, reconsidered, adjusted and reworked a number of provisions — especially by encouraging block grants and work requirements for Medicaid.
But the House Freedom Caucus leaders and their outside pressure groups have refused to get on board even to keep alive what surely will be the only vehicle to replace Obamacare that will come up this year. They have no respect for the reality that the budget "reconciliation" rules do indeed put real parameters on what can be included in such legislation with just 51 votes. They show no memory of how the only reason the whole of Obamacare passed in 2010 was because the Senate did meet a 60-vote threshold on Christmas Eve of 2009 and then used that vote as pretext for claiming reconciliation rules either already had been met or else no longer applied — and thus that Democrats then had an advantage Republicans do not enjoy right now.
They show no understanding that whatever they vote on in the House will absolutely be altered in the Senate and that they in the House will, therefore, get another chance to vote yea or nay on final passage. In effect, the first floor vote in the House amounts, de facto if not de jure, to a procedural vote. Without this vote, they absolutely will not be able to meet their campaign pledges to replace Obamacare. And they will make the Republican Congress and the new White House look hopelessly inept, destroy any political momentum from the election, explode comity within the House and Senate Republican caucuses, and badly hobble the entire conservative agenda in a flurry of mutual recriminations.
Yes, the whole process should be slowed down once it reaches the Senate. Senators should include House conservatives in behind-the-scenes negotiations as the Senate tries to rework the bill. The final bill should be crafted to fit as much within reconciliation rules as possible, should be accurately scored by the Congressional Budget Office before a vote, should be available for members of Congress and the public to read for a full week before the final vote, and should have parts that actually fit together rather than working at cross-purposes.
Yet all of this is best done in the Senate. Only the Senate really can determine how much to squeeze within its own peculiar reconciliation rules. Only the Senate can determine how conservative a bill can be without losing just three of 52 Republican members.
You've gotten it completely wrong.
The Freedom Caucus isn't against repealing Obamacare, they are against the abomination that Ryan and crew have cooked up to replace it. Replacing horrible legislation (Obamacare) with merely bad legislation (Ryancare) isn't the answer.
I think that they should simply pass legislation that repeals Obamacare outright. Do this now, with an effective date of say, 1/1/2019. then we have time to address the changes needed to make private health insurance better, such as allowing insurance companies to sell across state lines, tort reform, etc. Kill Obamacare first and don't get bogged down in any replacement at all.
Nope the Reps promised Repeal and got elected on that. We did not vote for Obummer careLite V2.0
HR 1628 does not "kill" ObamaCare. It only gives it a new name to blame for the disaster that looms ahead.
Within a decade, the Dems will become the permanent majority party due to demographics fueled by mass immigration and minority birthrates. There is a reason why the Dems have won the popular vote in 6 out of the last 7 elections.
As do I.
Paul Ryan and the GOP-E RHINO's are LYING SUCKBAGS and are NOT to be trusted, period.
Drudge is running the headline that the Republican's are pulling the same crap Nancy Pelosi did in the House: "We have to pass the bill, to tell you what's in it."
No Deal! Absolutely NO F'N DEAL!!
Hated it when Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats pulled this crap, hate it when the Republican's do it.
The Republican House led by Boehner/Ryan and then Ryan passed a CLEAN REPEAL bill more than forty times while Obama was President. A CLEAN REPEAL on DAY ONE is what President Trump promised. That is what I and those who voted for President Trump expect.
GIVE ME A CLEAN REPEAL OF OBAMACARE OR GIVE ME DEATH!
(I say this as someone who has a chronic health condition that's very expensive to live with. "Fixing" Obamcare or re-branding it is NOT the solution! If necessary, let Obamacare crash and burn under its own weight and make the Democrats OWN it lock, stock and stinking barrel!)
BUT TRUMP DOES WANT HIS NAME ATTACHED TO THIS BILL. HE SUPPORTS IT. He has the support of the people and the overwhelming majority of the GOP members in the House, including conservatives like Steve King and Marsha Blackburn.
Regulating interstate commerce is a federal function, separate and apart from health care which is not.
No, this is Freedom Caucus vs. Paul Ryan and the RINO's.
President Trump may want to "do the right thing" with all this at the end of the day, however if a bill never gets to him because Ryan and the rest of the GOP-E LYING SUCKBAGS are fucking this all up, how is that President Trump's fault?
Boehner/Ryan and then the Paul Ryan led House of Representatives passed somewhere around 40'ish CLEAN REPEAL bills when Obama was President.
Why won't they do THAT EXACT SAME THING NOW?!
Conclusion: Paul Ryan and the GOP-E are trying to hang this as a failure around President Trump's neck so when Obamacare finally crashes, burns and wrecks healthcare in this country it's "his fault."
Only a SUCKER and a FOOL will believe that. Give me a CLEAN REPEAL of Obamacare of GIVE ME DEATH!
The bill kills Obamacare. If it didn’t, the Dems would be supporting it.
Maybe you’re missing the big picture.
Maybe the big picture is that this industry-authored scandal of a bill is intended to fail, leaving Ryan holding the bag.
This bill is not what the American people want and you should know that.
If it so clear what the people want, why has the GOP been unable to come up with a consensus plan on providing then what they want?
Trump tweets:
After seven horrible years of ObamaCare (skyrocketing premiums & deductibles, bad healthcare), this is finally your chance for a great plan!
The irony is that the Freedom Caucus, which is very pro-life and against Planned Parenthood, allows P.P. to continue if they stop this plan!
Maybe the big picture is that this industry-authored scandal of a bill is intended to fail, leaving Ryan holding the bag.
Nonsense. This is a major defeat for Trump and the MSM and the Dems will play it that way. Trump was all in supporting this plan. The MSM and the Dems will say that the guy who authored The Art of the Deal couldn't deliver and that he is just a charlatan and a phony. It will further weaken Trump's ability to get the rest of his agenda passed and embolden the various factions within the GOP to make unreasonable demands on any legislation that is proposed.
What are you, insane? The Freedom Caucus is the only semblance of conservatives we have in Congress!
This bill is a horror and they’ll be doing the president and the American people a favor by making it go down. Hillyer is simply a mouthpiece for the GOPe/uniparty here.
How could a bill be so bad when they had so much time to write it except it was written by the Lobbyists.
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My advice - get the most conservative bill you can passed, then keep chipping away at Obamacare, especially in 2018 when Republicans SHOULD pick up 6-8 Senate seats.
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R-I-G-H-T. Tell me again what the (R) have been able to ‘chip away’ in the times they’ve had a majority/full control?
Seems we still have the DoEd, 40 yrs. of ‘chipping’...wait, no, they’ve given more power/$$ EVERY. DAMN. TIME.
TARP, TPP, NSA, DHS, TSA, NCLB, Par ‘D’ expansion...*MORE* govt from the ‘Party of smaller govt’.
Oh, they passed a full repeal NUMEROUS times in the last 8 yrs. But now...?? BWAhahaha. They can’t even pass a simple “No govt employee shall be exempt from any Law” bill (which would do *wonders* to your theory...IF).
Passing this bill would be a major defeat for the American people.
If Trump puts himself in opposition to the will of the people, he’s on the wrong side. It’s the very thing that put him in office, after all.
HR 1628 is ObamaCare with a new name to blame. It is a surrender of all free market principles to the most disastrous big-government program ever foisted on this nation. HR 1628 lends life support to a collapsing scheme that is still doomed to collapse - but under new Republican sponsorship.
I think that the House Freedom Caucus should see this phase through, and vote to send this bill over to the Senate, where Ted Cruz and Rand Paul will have plenty to say.
I've concluded that the best option is to give the Senate something to work with.
This bill is far from being law, and will clearly be changed by the Senate, so the absolutist argument that it needs to stop here and now is simply not convincing.
The House should pass the best bill they can and the process should continue. Anything else automatically condemns Americans to more pain...
If the Freedom Caucus ends up voting "Yea", will you still stand with them? Or are you standing with them merely because their current "Nay" stance happens to conform with your opinion?
If the HFC is brought "on board", will that change your opinion of the HFC, or of the bill itself?
I did not say replace the speaker I said replace the leader of the healthcare reform effort...two different things.
It’s designed to further socialize and ruin healthcare in this country.
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