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.
No, the Freedom Caucus needs to be lauded for their efforts to repeal AND NOT REPLACE OR REPAIR Obamacare.
Sure -— The Freedom Caucus should be ashamed of itself by standing up for conservatism and denying Trump the ability to foist RINOCare on us and check off a box (campaign promise). Yeah right.
There is nothing magical about Friday. They should all lock themselves into a room until they get it right.
The establishment Republicans have had eight years to figure out a health care bill that makes sense, review it, promote it, and convince the American people that it is good for them, or most of them. If they’ve done a damned thing, I haven’t heard of it. If they have a plan, I haven’t heard any details.
All I know is that Paul Ryan has pulled something, I have no idea what, because he and his cloakroom buddies haven’t tried to market it, apparently out of his butt, and his ENTIRE focus seems to be who’s the guy with the big cojones in the Senate.
I am not interested in passing a bill so Paul Ryan can say “Look at Me! Me! Me!. I passed a bill!” “They asked ‘Are we going to have a bill?’ and I said ‘Yes, we’re going to have a bill.’ And now we have a bill. And I, Paul Ryan, did it. I won a big victory for OUR SIDE. I’m the BSD of the Senate”.
Nor am I particularly interested in passing a bill just to “destroy Obama’s legacy.” At the end of the day the bills I care about are the doctor bills.
I am WAY less concerned about who gets the gold medal for Senate manoeuvring than the consequences we’re going to be stuck with if the bill passes. I have yet to have anyone explain it.
The only things I’ve heard that I understand is that the bill provides for Health Savings Accounts and supposedly the House made changes to the McCarren-Ferguson act. I’ve already got an HSA, so if it’s going to be improved, that might be something. No one has spilled the details, though. If it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread, no one’s trying to promote it.
The house supposedly did something in regard to the McCarren-Ferguson act, which no one has ever heard of, but I know what it is. It is an act that removed insurance from the definition of “commerce” to make the insurance regulated separately by each state. Presumably this had to do with “shopping for insurance across state lines”. If so, no one has bothered to clue the public in on it.
Part of being a legislator is keeping the public informed what you are doing. It ain’t happening, and I am not prepared to assume “but that’s OK”.
Depends on how you define 'better'. Will it improve the affordability of health care insurance, increase choices, or cover more people? Almost certainly not. Will it cost the government less? Perhaps in overall spending, but since they are keeping the entitlement while eliminating the taxes that paid for it then it will probably cost more as well. Is this something the GOP could run on in 2018 and win? Absolutely no.
Because they are in power and the Democrats will say that the Republicans could have saved it but did not. That's how.
If the GOP cannot come together and develop a consensus on how to govern, then it does not deserve to be in the majority. The Dems would never allow this to happen because they know how to govern.
It is no secret that many in the Freedom Caucus did not support Trump. So-called conservative publications like the National Review made it their objective to destroy Trump. Mike Lee and Ted Cruz were not supportive of Trump during the campaign. Evan McMuffin ran to suck votes away from Trump in Utah and elsewhere. The #NeverTrump movement is still going on sub rosa. McCain, Graham, Collins, Murkowski, etc. are willing to torpedo Trump and go down to defeat rather than support him.
I am glad that Trump issued his ultimatum. The negotiations are over. Support the bill or keep Obamacare. Time to move on to tax reform, which will be another internecine battle within the dysfunctional GOP.
I have a sincere question. Does HR 1628 actually get rid of ObamaCare, or does it merely give a bad law a new name to blame? No matter what its official name, the GOP will own "TrumpCare" or "RyanCare" just as surely as the Democrats have owned "ObamaCare" for seven years. Unless we reinstitute a market-based system, this ticking time bomb will be lit with a Republican fuse. I'd rather let ObamaCare collapse than merely lend it a Republican face. Do it right, or don't do it at all.
I stand with The Freedom Caucus! And am sick of the “it’s too hard!” crowd enabling the sick senate.
Pass a clean repeal, with an effective date 4 months after it passes. That will hold a gun to their heads of the beta males and their friends in the senate.
Next, create, pass, and send one bill with everything we want—across state lines, tort reform, etc. Let the cowardly wimps vote in public and we’ll take care of them. Anyone not on board will be doxed and we’ll friken show up at their house.
While in spirit, my heart is with the Freedom Caucus and I agree that Obamacare should be repealed lock, stock, and barrel with no “replace”. Sometimes you just to have to bow to reality, and that reality is we all got snookered. The Republican establishment never intended to repeal Obamacare, not the twelve times they passed a repeal because they knew Obama would veto it, not now, not ever. The reality of the situation is Trump is sadly correct, we have two choices, do nothing and keep Obamacare unchanged, or choose the Republican establishment “Obamacare-lite” bill which is perhaps slightly less onerous. It is obvious now that there is no third option, the establishment is never going to allow a full repeal, no matter what the Freedom Caucus says or does.
What is "good" about the AHCA?
And conservatives should be pleased. I'm a conservative not a Republican.
TrumpCare hasn’t even been up for a vote yet. And so the GOP-e is already blaming conservatives (Freedom Caucus) in advance for when it fails?
Bull Cheese.
Just yesterday we were reading where the Freedom Caucus agreed to support this crap. Just so they would not get blamed for when it eventually fails in the Senate.
Another example of cutting off your nose to spite your face. The Freedom Caucus is missing the big picture. A defeat of this bill is a defeat of Trump and puts the rest of his agenda in jeopardy. Maybe that is the objective. Make a fool out of Trump, the only Rep who could have and did defeat Hillary. This bill is a litmus test on the ability of the GOP to be the governing party. Voting no is a suicide note. The GOP is dead. The idea that a Rep in the WH and control of Congress will drain the swamp is also dead.
Trump needs a signature victory NOW. He has negotiated hard with the Freedom Caucus and others to change the bill. Changes have been made. The Freedom Caucus makes up only about 15% of the GOP in Congress. They are not going to get everything they want nor can they blackmail Trump into making it a bill that meets only their criteria.
I respectively disagree. We were originally promised repeal. When "replace" was added to the promise, the game was lost. It makes no difference what the replacement looks like, it is still an acceptance that the Federal Government is responsible for everyone's health care, and as another "entitlement" it will only grow in cost and shrink in service, regardless of how it starts. Typical bait and switch.
Because you say so? Or were you planning as a later phase to offer actual facts and logic in support of your claim?
If replacement means moves like blocking states' interference with the interstate health insurance market, I'm all for it.
Have you read the AHCA? Do you agree with the Medicaid changes? Do you favor the removal of the individual mandate? Do you think it will increase competition, lower costs for both the individual and the USG, as detailed by the CBO?
Do you want to keep Obamacare, an imploding system, in place for at least another year or longer?
Then he needs to choose a better fight. Trump has been careful to attach his name to only the best properties, and I don't want his name plastered on the steaming pile of HR 1628.
So do I! The branch of the GOP that helped craft this bill - from Trent Lott and John Boehner to Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan - is the same branch that handed Obama everything he wanted, bastardized - or allowed the bastardization of - the confirmation process and has repeatedly pulled the rug out from under conservatives (and all Americans) with promises of, “We’ll get it right next time” or “We’ll cut the budget two dollars for every additional tax dollar” or “We don’t have the votes to...”
I believe they are the ones who will be reelected while the RINOs will be driven out. Hopefully!
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