Ending ObamaCare, Part One

The Wall Street Journal ^ | May 4, 2017

[Helicondelta]

The bill includes deregulatory steps to pave the way for a variety of insurance coverage that more people can afford; the largest entitlement reform in decades by devolving control over Medicaid to the states; a $1 trillion spending cut over a decade; tax credits for individual insurance that begin to equalize the tax treatment of health care for individuals and businesses; and the repeal of ObamaCare taxes totaling $900 billion over 10 years.

The bill doesn’t repeal all of ObamaCare because it can’t without Democratic help under the Senate’s budget rules. But the bill marks a giant step away from the Democratic march to government-run health care, which is why the political and cultural left have been so vitriolic in their denunciations.

The Senate will now put its stamp on the policy, and no doubt there will be many perils of Rand Paul-ine moments with only a 52-seat GOP majority. The House bill will change, but reporters who think it is doomed should get off Twitter and make some calls. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has been counting votes and calculating necessary compromises for some time.

House Republicans should be prepared that some of their planks may not survive Senate budget rules. They’ll have to be flexible enough to accept the compromises that are inevitable in a bicameral legislature. The trump card, so to speak, is that this process will yield a binary political choice: Either Members vote for what emerges from the House and Senate, or live with the status quo of ObamaCare.

That status quo is deteriorating as this week’s decision by Aetna to withdraw from Virginia’s health exchanges shows. Republicans will be blamed for that collapse whether or not they pass repeal and replace.

[vette6387]

” Either Members vote for what emerges from the House and Senate, or live with the status quo of ObamaCare.”

This is THE problem! And it only take two Rand Pauls to queer the deal in the Senate.

[nathanbedford]

I have a couple of process questions.

Is this bill being taken up in the Senate under the reconciliation process by which only 51 votes are needed to pass?

If not, I assume the bill can be filibustered in the Senate in which case I believe 60 votes are needed for cloture?

The article says, The bill doesn’t repeal all of ObamaCare because it can’t without Democratic help under the Senate’s budget rules, which implies that it is being taken up under reconciliation. Am I to conclude that if the process undertook to repeal Obamacare outright it could not be done under reconciliation and would therefore be subject to filibuster?

Why are we so passively accepting Mitch McConnell's diktat that the filibuster rule will not be eliminated for regular legislation even as it has been done by him to confirm Justice Gorsuch?

I think the answers to these questions tells us whether the italicized statement above is true or not. That is, unless as a practical matter Republican defections would require some Democrat Senators even under reconciliation to bring the vote up to 51.

Perhaps those with full access to the article can explain.

[RedWulf]

> Why are we so passively accepting Mitch McConnell’s diktat that the filibuster rule will not be eliminated for regular legislation even as it has been done by him to confirm Justice Gorsuch?

Because the GOP doesn’t want to pass the Trump agenda and as long as they can hide behind the filibuster they will. In September Trump will shut down the government in an effort get the GOP to change it.

[nathanbedford]

History tells me you are absolutely right about your first contention concerning Mitch McConnell and the Republican Congress. Unfortunately, history also tells me to be skeptical about your second contention concerning Trump actually shutting down the government.

I hope you are right.

[Pollster1]

I hope the House bill is part one of ending Obamacare, rather than this article being part one of a discussion on a final legislative “fix” to that terrible law.

[DoodleDawg]

Is this bill being taken up in the Senate under the reconciliation process by which only 51 votes are needed to pass?

I believe that is the intent but I've heard some speculation that features of the bill don't qualify for reconciliation so we'll see.

Why are we so passively accepting Mitch McConnell's diktat that the filibuster rule will not be eliminated for regular legislation even as it has been done by him to confirm Justice Gorsuch?

He's the leader of the Senate so he has more than a little control over it. But there just aren't 51 votes to do away with the filibuster.

[taildragger]

"Am I to conclude that if the process undertook to repeal Obamacare outright it could not be done under reconciliation and would therefore be subject to filibuster?"

NB...

Yes, it would be subject to filibuster. If my memory is correct, Obamacare wasn't a stand alone bill, bit a rider on a funding bill. Because of this fact, we have been told it could be undone in the Senate with 51, Mark Levin was on a screed about this about a year after O-care was passed. Tangent to this do you remember the tricks they did in the Senate to make it work? The adding as a rider was to prevent any changes, an up and down vote because changes meant reconciliation and the chance of failure, they couldn't risk it in the house and do it all again, because they lost the 60, Kennedy Died and Scott Brown took "his seat".

Now how many changes can Rand Paul and or other Senators make without violating the spirit of this as a reconciliation bill is the question. I have heard they may have more leeway, and I have also heard V.P. Pence can invoke some Senate rules to negate resistance, I am not wonk in regards to Senate rules, perhaps another Freeper can opine who is really up to speed on this.

"Why are we so passively accepting Mitch McConnell's diktat that the filibuster rule will not be eliminated for regular legislation even as it has been done by him to confirm Justice Gorsuch?"

I think a tangent question is why is Mitch so Passive. With the 60 threshold, I don't see PDJT's Tax Bill even getting to the Senate Floor with Cloture / Filibuster. While we had a number of defectors ( Spectre, Collins ) to get them to vote on O-Care on the Floor, I can't see 8 Dem's defecting even if it is to save their sorry @$$es in 18' since they reside in Pro-Trump States. He will have to go Nuclear at this point, their is no real comity anymore, comity to give your opponents views a venue to be heard, so screw it, ram them like they rammed us.

[Oldeconomybuyer]

Replacing subsidies with tax credits isn’t the kind of “repeal and replace” republicans promised. This plan relies too heavily on government and will not change the insurance market rapidly enough for average folks to see positive results.

We should have done a full repeal, then adopted a full market based model. Capitalism works.

[Saveourcountry]

I am confused about the “senate rule”. To me it seems that the rule is there so that the senators will not be inconvenienced, kind of like the “symbolic” hunger strike that was held recently by the college kids who were allowed to eat if they got hungry.

Wasn’t the original intent of the filibuster to make the senators so uncomfortable that they would use it as a last resort? I know nobody wants to talk for hours and hours on end, and nobody wants to listen to it, but if they forced a real one, instead of this symbolic b.s., I don’t think we would see it bantered about so often. Also, in the case of a real one, the senators could just wait until the person talking had to go to the bathroom or passed out from exhaustion and immediately call a vote.

It seems to me that this is “senate rule” is just a snow job on the American people so that nobody has to own uncomfortable legislation, and so that each side can use these issues as a way to raise money. They can exempt themselves and we continue to suffer.

Please advise. Am I wrong?

[Jim Noble]

I am quite sure there are not 50 Republican senators who will support this bill, the issue of cloture will not arise.

In fact, I’m sure Schumer will want a vote as soon as possible. If there are 45 votes for this, I will be amazed.

As others have pointed out, this bill perpetuates a doomed system, and transfers total ownership of the catastrophe from the Democrats to the Republicans.

Obamacare won’t be repealed, because it can’t be repealed - or, more exactly, it can’t be repealed without ushering in huge Democratic majorities in the House and the Senate.

Members of Congress don’t know much, but they can count votes like a pimp in a whorehouse can count money.

Yes, the voters “hate Obamacare and want it repealed”. That is absolutely true.

It’s also true that they want the ability to buy insurance for pre-existing conditions, want insurance companies to be forbidden to cancel policies for non-payment, want zero payment at the point of service, want their adult children who are smoking dope in a dive in Oakland to stay covered, want their States to expand Medicaid without taxes going up, and so on.

In other words, the only two things they hate about Obamacare are paying for it, and the name.

Republicans in Congress understand this perfectly well, which is why they can’t write a coherent bill.

And, not coincidentally, Obamacare (and Romneycare) were the culmination of fifty years of “reform”, all of which had the purpose of destroying the private sector or making it impossible for the private sector to function, except for boob jobs and a few other things. And, by 2009, the mission was largely accomplished.

Obamacare was merely a temporary mop-up operation, until full nationalization was possible.

And now, it is.

Like Nixon to China, Trump will propose single payer within the year. It’s really the only way out at this point.

And before you accuse me of favoring it, realize that it will destroy a lifetime of work for me. I don’t like it - I hate it.

But it’s coming, because it’s what the voters, bless their pointy little heads, want.

[jjotto]

The filibuster is an outgrowth of something akin to free speech in a legislature, unlimited debate. The limit on unlimited debate that we are familiar with dates to 1917 as a part of Progressive Era reforms. The original threshold for limiting debate was 67 votes instead of today’s 60 votes.

[savedbygrace]

If my memory is correct, Obamacare wasn't a stand alone bill, bit a rider on a funding bill.

IIRC, they took a totally different bill that the House had previously sent to the Senate, removed ALL of the text, then added all the ObamaCare text.

[taildragger]

Your right about the current Filibuster not being the one of old. From Wiki, here is the history from the 60's. IMHO I'd like to go back to Filibuster not the Virtual one, or Nuke-Option it all together...

From Wiki:

"After a series of filibusters in the 1960s over civil rights legislation, the Senate put a "two-track system" into place in the early 1970s under the leadership of Majority Leader Mike Mansfield and Majority Whip Robert Byrd. Before this system was introduced, a filibuster would stop the Senate from moving on to any other legislative activity. Tracking allows the majority leader—with unanimous consent or the agreement of the minority leader—to have more than one bill pending on the floor as unfinished business. Under the two-track system, the Senate can have two or more pieces of legislation pending on the floor simultaneously by designating specific periods during the day when each one will be considered.

In 1975, the Democratic-controlled Senate[10] revised the cloture rule so that three-fifths of sworn senators could limit debate, except on votes to change Senate rules, which required a two-thirds majority to invoke cloture. The Senate also experimented with a rule that removed the need to speak on the floor in order to filibuster (a "talking filibuster"), thus allowing for "virtual filibusters".

Another tactic, the post-cloture filibuster—which used points of order to delay legislation because they were not counted as part of the limited time allowed for debate—was rendered ineffective by a rule change in 1979."

[Mad Dawgg]

Interesting discussion on Facebook this morning. A lady is beside herself because she says even though she has insurance now her pre=existing condition will make her pay more and she will not be able to afford insurance.

YET for the last three years she has had no insurance and says she was happy to pay the IRS fine for not having it.

I asked her why she didn't buy insurance before and she said she couldn't afford it.

So to review for three years under Obamacare she couldn't afford insurance BUT paid a penalty to the IRS and still did not have insurance.

Now She has insurance (because she got a better job with higher pay) but is upset because her friends tell her this new bill will cause her insurance to go up because of her pre-existing condition and she won't be able to afford it but she won't pay a penalty to the IRS. So apprently for her it is better then to NOT have insurance and pay a penalty to the IRS than to now just not have insurance.

Orwell was right DOUBELTHINK is real.

[i_robot73]

>
Replacing subsidies with tax credits isn’t the kind of “repeal and replace” republicans promised. This plan relies too heavily on government and will not change the insurance market rapidly enough for average folks to see positive results.

We should have done a full repeal, then adopted a full market based model. Capitalism works.
>

But don’t you understand, RINO’care will work *this* time. /s

Everyone ‘forgets’ they passed 6 FULL repeals for the atrocity that was O’Care. Now that it’s ‘bring NOTHING to the table for negotiations, we gave away the works anyway’ from the House, people actually think it’ll get *better* in the Senate and reconciliation?!

“Well 1/6 of the economy is now Federalized, we better try for only ONE shackle instead of both. (WINNING)” *spit*

[GailA]

There are some links to follow so DO READ the article. Taking coverage from congress is to be addressed in a separate bill. It neuters a lot of the bad stuff in DUMBO care. And if states can control their own Medicaid, states like TN which is already over burdened with TENNCARE being stuffed with refugees and illegals can kick them off it next election, our legislative session is wrapping up for the year.

House Narrowly Passes Healthcare Bill — Here’s What You Need to Know
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2017/05/04/here-we-go-the-house-votes-on-trumpcare-n2322286?utm_source=thdailypm&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm&newsletterad=

[ROCKLOBSTER]

they want the ability to buy insurance for pre-existing conditions

There isn't such a thing.

want insurance companies to be forbidden to cancel policies for non-payment

That's ridiculous, pay your freakin bills.

want their adult children who are smoking dope in a dive in Oakland to stay covered

That's no big deal.

[vette6387]

“Why are we so passively accepting Mitch McConnell's diktat that the filibuster rule will not be eliminated for regular legislation even as it has been done by him to confirm Justice Gorsuch?”

I have a very hard time trying to figure out what The Turtle's game plan is. From my perspective, when and if the RATs regain the Senate, All these “rules” regarding the filibuster will go the way of the dodo bird. “Comity” in the Senate is dead forever. If there ever was any useful purpose for these arcane “rules” which evidently are not prescribed by the Constitution, they are long-gone. So with that in mind, it's hard to watch the GOPe trying to “save the Senate” while allowing the RATs to prevail when they don't have to let them. If the Senate doesn't function as a legislative body any longer, $hit can it and get on with the House being the only legislative body. And the other thing that needs to happen is for the SCOTUS to actually make rulings, a lot more of them. These nine turds haven't done an honest day's work in decades. Plus it's long past time for the House to do it's constitutional duty and discipline our judges who think they ARE the law, starting with the Ninth Circuit (circus).

[A strike]

Repeal and replace is designed for those who don’t want Obamacare repealed.