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.
We already know that the House and Senate majority leaders will lie to pass a bill. They will not have a 2nd or 3rd bill to fix this mess. Once this passes, Ryan is done with it.
We need to get it right the first time!
Well, “republicans” are insignificant.
Ah, yes. Conservatives are the problem. What a surprise.
I’m all in with the Freedom Caucus. Ryan is bought and paid for by the insurance industry.
Exactly. This roll out by Ryan was exactly what the Dems did to shove Obamacare down our throats...complete with Rino's putting it together in secret and then telling the rest of us to shut up and "eat" our crap sandwich.
Americans should be disgusted with republicans, democrats, regulatory agencies whose non-elected officials generate regulations that have the weight of law, the increasingly political judiciary, and everything that runs counter to the Constitution of the United States!
KYPD
Your name seems to be apt. What’s the point of replacing Obamacare with something as bad with the Republicans’ ownership on it? President Obama didn’t just promise to replace Obamacare, he promised specific principles that the new Healthcare bill would include, free market principles that would make it a successful plan over the long run (result in lower costs and higher quality). If the Freedom Caucus is not going to fight for this, what’s the point of their existence?
If they had to replace it then why didn't they take their time and do it right to begin with instead of throwing something together? They have had seven years.
The Free Traitor™ caucus more like it. Who needs them? Let Globalist Cheap Labor Express form their own meaningless party and GTFOOTW.
Sadly they probably win reelection in their districts although I think Harris in MD loses. Any chance of overturning Roe vs Wade goes down as well. Republicans cannot even fulfill this Repeal and Replace promise with majorities of such magnitude in the House. They really didn’t want President Trump to begin with and are reckless and feckless obstructionists, unable to compromise or work with anyone outside their bubbles.
The word conservative was hijacked by anti-nationalist free traders. The Republican Party wasn’t always so.
Ryan's version removes only two of the twelve mandates and leaves all the good stuff in bucket #3 that will never get passed much less come up for a vote. There is nothing conservative about Ryan's plan. It's simply the Republican version of Obamacare.
Well, what Trump promised was “repeal and replace”, with a “great plan” where “everybody will be taken care of”. If they simply repeal it millions of previously covered people who lost their old plans will be without anything. Many of those people were the ones who elected Trump. So Trump won’t sign a bill that repeals without a replacement plan. If he did he would be a one term president. People will judge them by what happens to them personally. They won’t blame the Democrats when Obamacare tanks, they will blame the people in charge at the time, Trump and the Pubs.
Pretty disgusted with this wasted opportunity. Guess they just can’t shake the GOPe mind set can they. 2018 could be interesting. More rinos or more dementocrats.
Do what Lou Dobbs said last night:
Kill this misbegotten bill and come up with a new one designed by Trump and his people in consultation with the Freedom Caucus.
Hang the Obamacare disaster around the necks of the Media and the ‘Rat Party.
Then promptly dump Paul Ryan and his fellow GOPe travelers.
Which “Republicans” would that be? The Linda-McLame wing?
Who really cares? The GOP is being reformed by Trump. The old GOP died last November.
Paul Ryan owns this disaster. He refused to show it to the Freedom Caucus and has been the usual pig headed my way or the highway idiot he has always been. The only thing that will be remembered in 18 is if Lying Ryan is still speaker and if he is goodbye majority!
Uh — whut? That’s the GOP leadership you’re talking about, isn’t it?
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