The Freedom Caucus opposition to the AHCA bill probably had nothing to do with ideology and had everything to do with political reality. There was nothing in the AHCA that would have reduced health insurance costs soon enough to ward off a political disaster for the GOP in 2018.
If the GOP had passed this “health care reform” bill in the spring of 2017, and then 2018 insurance renewals went out to individuals and employers in the fall of 2017 with the same massive increases in premiums we’ve seen in recent years, then the GOP would have faced catastrophic losses in the 2018 midterms ...
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If you haven’t seen it already, I posted (in full) an article Dave Brat wrote to his constituents yesterday & posted on FB. Here’s the link: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3538170/posts?page=287#287
From what he says, your analysis is “spot on”. Two key excerpts (whole thing is worth reading):
Third, on the policy. The GOP leadership’s bill included premium increases of 15 to 20% until 2020. That is not progress. While some were led to believe we were getting a repeal of Obamacare, this bill left in place the worst planks of Obamacare, the parts that drive up the cost of insurance. If you want to be able to shop for your health insurance, like you used to be able to, that was not in this bill. If you want your premiums to go down to where they used to be, that was not in this bill. If you are a young person who just wants to go out and buy a bare bones insurance plan that fits your life and needs, that was not in this bill. In fact, the federal bureaucracy would still be in charge of telling insurance companies how to do insurance, and that is the major problem. The federal government is doing insurance just like we had the federal government doing mortgages right before the financial collapse.
Instead, the GOP healthcare plan maintained a federally mandated product that is very expensive with huge deductibles. While people were no longer mandated to buy insurance, everyone who does purchase insurance would end up paying just as much as they are now, and prices would continue to rise.
Members in various groups both moderate and conservative, were making very good progress negotiating with President Trump, who as a businessman understands the issues at play. We were on the verge of getting rid of the most price-inflating regulations but we ran out of time because an artificial deadline was imposed.The artificial deadline was imposed because polling data showed only 17% approval for the bill from the American people as the replacement bill headed to the House floor. The day before the vote the calls into my office were 700 against and 100 calls for the bill.
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Comment from me - I’m pi$$ed off in general that an attempt was made to cram Ryancare down our throats when in fact it is Obamacare with the “D” changed to an “R” - this comment from Brat has “set me off” even further ...... just DISGUSTING!!! Ryan & his leadership team needs to go although it appears no one in the House wants the job so we get SOB (son of Boehner) ..... from Brat’s article:
My constituents are understandably confused as to how this could happen after they elected Republican majorities who campaigned on the promise to repeal Obamacare. It happened because this bill emerged the way DC has worked for years; the bill was crafted under cover in committee, with no discussion or input from groups with different ideas. There was no debate of competing bills anywhere along the process. Bottom line, the conservative members were left out of the drafting of the bill. In fact, the leadership team went so far as to say that “there is not a place for them to survive in this world”. I want to reiterate that point, it is a quote coming from our leadership team about the Conservative members in a Conservative conference in the Conservative party. Truth of the matter is that far more moderates than conservatives were breaking away and voting no on this bill, yet somehow this point is never reported. It is always a blame game toward the conservatives in the conservative conference by leadership.
I was going to post a few quotes from that article here, but then I realized that the entire thing was a continuous stream of great points. I'll post just one here instead:
The day before the vote the calls into my office were 700 against and 100 calls for the bill.
I want everyone who has been spending the last few days bad-mouthing the House Freedom Caucus to read that quote carefully and ask yourself one question: What kind of lunatic would ever criticize a member of Congress for opposing a bill that had the support of only 17% of voters, and was facing a 7-to-1 margin of opposition in his own district?