Posted on 03/21/2017 4:52:39 PM PDT by Enlightened1
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) told Breitbart News exclusively on Tuesday afternoon that he expects House Speaker Paul Ryan will be forced to pull the American Health Care Act (AHCA) before a scheduled Thursday vote because Ryan will not get the votes to pass the legislation. The AHCA has been dubbed “Obamacare Lite” by Paul — a leading conservative critic of the plan — and by other conservatives as “RyanCare,” “RINO-Care,” and “Obamacare 2.0,” since the bill does not actually fully repeal Obamacare and keeps many of the main structures that the now-former President Barack Obama installed in the healthcare system. It has come under intense scrutiny from both sides of the Republican Party — moderates and conservatives are lining up against the bill — and Ryan, despite publicly projecting confidence, cannot find the necessary 216 votes to pass the legislation.
Paul, one of the leading senators out of more than a dozen Republicans in the upper chamber criticizing the bill there, told Breitbart News in this exclusive interview he believes there are at least 35 House Republicans ready to vote against the bill in its current form. And he predicted that, unless some major changes come to the legislation between now and the scheduled vote on Thursday, Ryan will need to withdraw the bill and Republicans will have to start from scratch with a new bill and a new strategy on Obamacare.
Paul said in the in-person interview at his U.S. Senate office in the Russell Senate Office Building:
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
You write that as if Ryan were not a leftist. He is a globalist and a corporatist and in the current milieu that makes him a Leftist.
You have to include the entire Republican Party in that charge of betrayal. He was elected to his position, I believe, unanimously or almost so. Those congressmen knew what Ryan is and they voted for him. They wanted him. They want what he wants. He wants what the Democrats who still pretty much are in charge want. Why do you think Pelosi stayed on?
You have to include the entire Republican Party in that charge of betrayal. He was elected to his position, I believe, unanimously or almost so. Those congressmen knew what Ryan is and they voted for him. They wanted him. They want what he wants. He wants what the Democrats who still pretty much are in charge want. Why do you think Pelosi stayed on?
Then watch medicine become affordable to a larger range of people than has been true for half a century at least, medicine that becomes a household expense instead of an impoverishment system. Insurance would become far less important than it has been for decades. it would, in fact, become Insurance, which it now is not. Now it is a system for funneling huge amounts of money to government agencies and to lawyers and insurance companies and provide reliable voting constituencies for politicians. In the market almost all that money would be available in citizens' pockets to pay for medical care and for real insurance, that commodity for financing extreme and uncommon events. "Insurance" that "covers" everything is merely a medical prepayment plan in which only a small fraction of the money goes to medical care and the rest goes to provide a high incomes for bureaucrats and insurance CEOs and clerks.
No plan doesn’t seem to be a realistic option. Moreover, they ran on repeal and replace. Now, the realities are what Rand Paul doesn’t seem to be interested in addressing. Can you get a clean repeal bill to pass with just Republican votes? No, it’s not. You need 60 votes. Now, let’s say we had some real hardcore Republicans (All like Ted Cruz or Rand Paul on this issue). Then MAYBE you could get the rules changed and force everything in with 51 votes. The reality of the situation is you have John McCain, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Susan Collins. All of these people need to vote in favor of the bill in addition AND the rule changes (which could apply to all other bills going forward (including when the Democrats take back power)). That is just not in the cards. There is a scenario where the Republicans put everything they want (as if they all agree) and then Pence overrules all the rules but that doesn’t seem realistic to me either. So then, how do you get Obamacare repealed with this reality? Answer: You can’t. Rand Paul’s principals are good here but he has absolutely no idea or plan on how to actually get those ideas or principals to come into law. He’s not seriously trying to govern he’s just complaining. What they are doing is gutting Obamacare through the current process and they can gut a lot of it with a slim majority of votes in addition to getting rid of regulations through Price (this doesn’t always get rid of them, it sometimes zeros things out. Part of the complaint is that they need to get rid of them in law and not just through the secretary and this should be able to be done through reconciliation; I happen to agree with that but I don’t know all of the details to be able to say conclusively that what I think it doable is indeed doable.). Once the law has been gutted you put clean bills in. I.e, a bill to lower drug cost (This is something that Democrats could vote for if there isn’t any repeal language in the bill but won’t vote for along with a repeal). You put an HSA bill or an “Across state lines Bill”. Depending on how the Democrats feel about all these positions you may be able to put them all into one bill. Again, you can’t squeeze them into a “Phase One” bill because that would neceessarily require Obamacare repeal language and no Democrat is going to vote for that. If you really think about it this is the best way you can get this done now. I agree, make the repeal portion as hardcore and complete as possible but as you know there are a lot of RINO’s in the Senate who are begging or MORE subsidies so a clean repeal isn’t going to happen. I don’t like Paul Ryan either but this one isn’t really on him. It’s on Mitch McConnell and the RINO’s and cowards in the Senate. It really is his way or keep Obamacare until it dies on the operating table. Politically that could be a disaster since the Republicans own every branch of government. Rand Paul and the naysayers don’t have a viable alternative, that’s the truth.
Read what I wrote above. It’s easy to pass crappy bills when you’re not in power and the Senate Minority knows the President is going to veto the bill. The realities are a lot different now
It’s making sausage. The process isn’t pretty. It wasn’t in 2010 for the Dems, either.
Always, always remember. They wanted a single payer plan. They DEMANDED a single payer plan, like England’s NHS.
All they could get through their own party was Obamacare, which is nowhere near single payer.
We will have to weave our way through the same maze of different states wanting different things.
Those nuts actually believe the insane political ideas they have in their heads.
Ryan is a vulture. He has no leanings, on convictions.
Just whatever lines his pockets.
He’s worse than a true believer.
Cross the isle bills with the Dems do nothing but infect it with ultra-progressivism.
That way leads to government control and loss of liberty. We’ve already lost so much.
There isn’t any bill that will reduce costs in an aging population. You know this.
Trump has a lot of poewr, but does need to get people in who will look out for the costs, not build empires. And cut the $5-20 billion a year the us.gov sends to ABC/CBS/NBC, Google, the phone company, Facebook. Spying on everybody isn’t helpful. Keeping transcripts on all people for all phone conversations is chilling to political discourse.
It helps, a lot.
In a previous life, I was a pricing actuary. If only one or companies sell insurance in your market, chances are a lot higher that you won’t get the product that best fits your needs. There used to be over 3,000 health insurers. Through state-by-state regulation, that has been knocked down - 50? 200? I don’t follow the details (no financial benefit to me). Must especially use interstate commerce clause to stop states from regs that limit the market via continuous regulation. Lots of insurers leave a state because the cost of compliance is more than maximum likely profit.
Raise Medicare age to 75 - giving more people to Medicare is like giving more children to the Sun God. I refuse to be put on that altar.
Better - give people x bucks a month for medical issues, to save or spend. Best. Get out of picking winners and losers completely. Least likely yet best possible solution.
no conservative or free market steps will ever be passed by Congress. just like “future spending cuts” never actually transpire.
I have been much more comfortable with Paul on defense of late. I increasingly think the insanity of our overactive, current approach calls for something toward his corrective.
But he’s been heroic on this Obamacare 2.0. Still, I’d like to see the Freedom Caucus and the GOP in general advocate this simple corrective—repeal Obamacare, phase out the tax deduction for healthcare in tandem with dramatic drops in income tax rates (which could be rolled together in a single reconciliation bill this spring), and repeal the McCarron-Ferguson Act, which among other correctives for the free market would allow interstate competition. Oh, and roll back the expansion of Medicaid.
That’s it. Problem solved.
No, anything is not better than what we have now. For example, with the proposed Obamacare 2.0 illegals will get coverage.
The whole thing can be repealed with 51 votes. The GOP control the House and the Senate and make up their own rules. McConnell still has a Democrat parliamentarian, which is a mistake, but even with her, they could simply have Pence take the gavel and declare the full repeal legitimately part of ‘reconciliation’.
Well put.
It seems so easy. What is their objection?
Given that Trump has now met with Ezekiel E. three times in person on this since the election—and he has his liberal/Democrat team of Ivanka, Jared, and Gary Cohn advising him on it, I don’t think Ryan is the only one to blame for this, unfortunately.
Even more so that it was Trump’s third in-person meeting with Emmanuel since the election.
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