Republicans. The modern Republican Party is in great part a collection of the spiritual descendants of the Confederacy. The long do-si-do with the Democrats has been going on for ~150 years, and we’re finally back where we were in 1860 WRT polarization, but the parties are reversed.
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We were in this exact position after the first AHCA version stopped moving in the House. The FC was getting all the attention, but it also appeared that 24+ Reps in purplish districts were “no”'s that would become increasingly against the bill if things went into the bill to appease the FC. Then we dropped our guard, …, and there was a bizarre celebration in the Rose Garden that hopefully will seem even dumber in retrospect than it seemed at the time.
I do agree that we’re all less likely to get cocky this time, though, but, yeah, the Marshall Lemma the moderates will fold is helpful to keep in mind. (Thank God there are two Houses so that we get a second chance not to be fooled by the AHCA’s first chance going down the tubes.)
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Looking at Republican “moderates” and “hard liners” always reminds me of the Woody Allen quote from Annie Hall: “I feel that life is divided into the horrible and the miserable. That’s the two categories." You could just as easily say that about Republicans at this point.
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If they cared, they’d remind us at every opportunity that the ACA originated with a Republican think tank, and they’d take credit for having invented it.
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Their real problem is that they have no plan. Neither Trump nor McConnell has any policy understanding of health care. Proposing a bad plan is a liability to them, whether it loses or especially if it wins. The only way to pick up support on health care is to lower insurance costs and deductibles, and they have no clue how to do that.
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Exactly, a vote against this horror show is a vote against it. Take Rand Paul, as I’ve been saying for days, his vote against is cloaked under some batshit libertarian principles, but the real story is that his vote totals rely heavily on poor countries in KY who rely heavily on the Medicaid Expansion. Even David From pointed this out last night on Lawrence O’Donnell. Some of the hardline folks in the Senate are actually taking a hardline because they need this thing to fail just as badly as the moderates.
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I agree that the Kochs probably prefer a Pence-style movement conservative, but a lot of things would have to happen before they came out for Trump’s ouster.
But then again we live in interesting times, so who knows. My crystal ball has been on the fritz since Nov. 8, so I’m not a reliable predictor.
It is terribly convenient that Paul’s batshit crazy libertarian principles require him to vote for preservation of Medicaid expansion in Kentucky. I wonder how Mitch “tweaks” the bill to protect Medicaid expansion while making it more batshit crazy for the far right.
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Yes, and the GOP’s slim majority makes every Republican Senator a potential kingmaker with his/her own wish list of demands as a condition of his deciding vote, which certainly adds to the roiling going on.
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I think, being Mitch, he might just do it on a state-by-state basis to woo certain senators and punish others. He’s still got to come up with about $600 billion in medicaid cuts to meet his tax-cut and deficit targets.
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This bill is dead. There is a new division in the Senate that McConnell and radical Republicans did not take into account, though it has been perculating for over a year: the United Medicaid Expansion States of America vs the United States of Non-Expansion America.
The Medicaid Expansion created a constituency with no voice, until now. Now, Expansion State Senators like Dean Heller and Shelly Moore Capito have woken up, smelled the. McConnell coffee, and realized that it’s a toxic brew. Trump did not win in NV, there is
ZERO upside for Heller in a yes vote, and there is nothing that McConnell can offer him to change his mind.
I’ve said for some time that Capito would be a no vote. Trump may have carried WV by 40% or 400%, but almost half the population of the state is on Medicaid, Medicare or CHIP. If Trump got her vote on this bill, or one anywhere like it, by 2020 her voters would have plenty of time to figure out that she had sold them out and put her signature on a death warrant. Her vote, like Heller’s, isn’t really in play anymore.
Collins is an example of Senators who are having to think more like governors about a huge statewide issue. And she’s planning a run for Governor in a state that is in the process of accepting the Medicaid Expansion. She’s not posturing, IMO.
That’s three no votes. Then we have the contrast between Senators who are being forced to think pragmatically and those addicted to their ideologies. Rand Paul will vote for this bill only in McConnell’s dreams. Whether he musket he bill meaner or nicer is beside the point for Paul. He’s a
no vote for anything other than full repeal. IMO, he’s not bluffing. I assume, however, that all the other radical Republicans suggesting they may vote no, like Johnson and Cruz will cave out of the hatred that consumes them. Mike Lee may be an exception.
We only need three. The delay is stupid politics and will only intensify the extent of the carnage for the Republicans.
Just one person’s take.
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Yes, the individual mandate was a conservative idea, but establishing patient protections, providing subsidies to lower-income people, and expanding Medicaid are Democratic ideas.
Agree. Shit got real on Nov. 9.
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Now is the time for Democrats to loudly and proudly proclaim help for Repeal and Replace if the Republicans will add a Single Payer system to their bill Trump will see this as an opportunity and will potentially get behind a Democratic effort to create Trumpcare a single payer system for everyone.
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Expand Medicaid, single payer, fix ACA, something…Why does the corrupt GOP hate their own friends and families?
Exactly, terribly convenient! But there’s simply nothing Mitch can do to make it more palatable for the batshit and at the same time protect the expansion. It’s like trying to be taller and shorter at the same time. You can’t do both.
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But House Republicans sell for bubkas. Senators are far more expensive and have far bigger egos. Trump is increasingly being portrayed as a paper tiger, while at the same time showing that he will attack Republican Senators with ad buys over one vote.
I’m sure some Senators have come to the conclusion that legislation without D’s is impossible under President Chaos.
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More pissed that defeat took their God-given superiority from them and made everybody equal.
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Agree completely. Live by the batshit, die by the batshit.
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ZOMBIES…
The worst people in our country are Republicans.
Democrats CAN’T deal or work in in a bipartisanship with the ZOMBIES…There’s no way.
There is no middle ground here…NONE.
The ZOMBIES want to throw granny from the train and next is her kids and grandkid. ZOMBIES will eat their own and then blame it on Obama and Hillary.
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