The bill rewards Medicaid expansion holdouts and punishes states like WV and Alaska that already expanded. I hope that feature is made clear to the people of those states and to their senators.
This is what Republicans do. They spend every waking second scheming to screw the vast majority of Americans in order to benefit the rich. It is their only core principle. Everything else is window dressing/red meat.
Can we stop calling these things “last-ditch efforts”? Seems like the last three have been last-ditch efforts, which sort of renders it meaningless.
I’ll believe the GOP will stop trying to ruin health care when they either successfully do it or the Earth is swallowed by the sun.
The bill rewards ACA hold out red states now and screws everyone else in a few years when funding ends. Medicare and Medicaid will no longer exist in any workable form. They will have achieved a great victory against the people. And no surprise, no replacement.
They won’t be satisfied until millions lose health care and tens of thousands die as a result…and, of course, tax cuts. If there’s a hell, Satan will welcome them as his servants on earth. I assume a special room is being prepared.
This is a good, objective article. There are a few benefits to the Republicans for advancing this thing even if, as Sen. Wyden says, People Power can and will stop it.
First off, I believe that’s Dean Heller in the picture. Next year he can assert that it was indeed a Replacement, thus burnishing his “credentials” as a Compassionate Conservative for the election.
Secondly, the Good Guys will have to use resources to stop it.
Thirdly, it looks like the GOPers are trying to govern.
That’s why they’re doing it.
If it gets to a vote, it’ll fall one vote short.
If not McCain, and not Rand, it’ll be someone else.
Just call your senators. A slim chance is still a chance, so calling just may be the best shot you’ll ever have at actually saving human lives.
They just can’t help themselves when it comes to trying to harm the vast majority of Americans, can they?
Just what Pennsylvania Politicians like Tarzi and Scarnati Need, Medicare
Block Grant Money to balance the 2 BILLION Dollar short fall in the Budget !
My senators are Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey. Do I really have to call? (This is one of the frustrations of living in Massachusetts. In addition to Warren and Markey, my congressman is Joe Kennedy. It’s nice to know that we have such good people in Congress, but it makes me feel like there’s not a lot that I can do. Besides giving $$ (of which there’s not a lot) and commenting out here.
You have my permission not to call. 
One of mine is Casey and I don’t call him. The other is Toomey so I call him twice.
I’d call Toomey, but the people in Congress don’t give a damn about people who aren’t from their constituency, unless they know that big bucks can be got from them.
I always laugh when I see photos of Dean Heller. It’s like Jerry Lewis got elected to the Senate. Granted it’s situational comedy, but his cluelessness is delightful.
First point - this bill will guarantee that Heller is dead meat in the general next fall.
Second point - but they are in such a hurry to get this done, that the resources we expend are mostly volunteers time. There won’t be enough time to put together ad campaigns or anything that actually costs money. And anything you give volunteers to rally around, only helps them organize.
Third point - It has nothing to do with trying to govern. Its all about tax cuts, and paying back 8 years of empty rhetoric on Obamacare.
I said it “looked like” trying to govern. To their people.
Didn’t mean that they actually were trying.
As for taxes, I have posts on that coming up.
“Oh, hey. A bill that does absolutely nothing but hurt most Americans in return for a big handout to rich people. Yay! Let’s keep giving Republicans more and more power because someday I’ll be rich too and I want a tax cut!”
– Republican voters
For the GOP the poor, sick and disabled are sort of like Jennifer Lawrence. There just HAS TO BE A WAY to fuck them, if only they try hard enough.
An assumption of government is that the fiscal and monetary side cooperate. If they don’t, you have to think about what that means. The Stackelberg competition model, for example, of non-cooperative players might treat the fiscal side (congress) as the “leader” or first mover in the game, and the central bank (Fed) as the “follower” or second mover. Here’s our problem. Congress refuses or is incapable of making a first move, and may have surrendered its leader role to the central bank. Indeed, we see this happening with Quantitative Tightening and plans to jettison some of the bond purchase from the past eight years. Who knows what happens as we have never seen such a dynamic or such an incompetent congress. I’d say it has everything to do with trying to govern.
I remember the day call screeners for reps would call you out if your area code on their caller ID showed you were possibly not in the rep’s district. With people today having cell #s for life, traveling with them wherever they locate, I suppose that block method has gone by the wayside.