Mucho many likes…
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Because of very serious and principled policy differences between those who want the hair shirt to be made out of steel wool and those who want it made out of razor wire. But in the spirit of true bipartisanism, they seem to be converging on a compromise in which the shirt will be made of steel wool, but the collar, cuffs, seams, and bottom are made of razor wire.
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I can see Ivanka flogging that at a Milan fashion show, or the Oval Office…
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McCaskill, at least, seems to have absorbed the great lesson of 2010 that you can’t beat a Republican in a reddish-purple state by moving to the right anymore. Heitkamp? Who the hell knows?
One thing for sure is that Democrats smell disaster for the GOP in this bill, pass or fail. I really don’t think any of them are dumb enough to tie themselves to it.
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Maybe, but when the ACA was enacted Republicans hobbled its future prospects for full success with all manner of sabotage. I don’t agree with Republican’s characterization it’s a disaster, nor doomed to eventually fail. However, I do read many insurance policy analysts attest several fixes need affected or bad outcomes loom on the horizon. If AHCA fails, Republicans will be perfectly happy to refuse to help perfect the current ACA, content to watch all the predicted troubles unfold before our eyes and blame Democrats. The wails of Republican voters will fall on deaf ears, with McConnell, Trump and Ryan saying “Don’t fault us for this mess, talk to Schumer and Pelosi, they put you in this bind.” And Republican voters will follow that lead.
Yes, from what I understand every major piece of legislation gets a “fix bill” after it has been tried for a while and glitches found. ACA was lucky to get passed at all and never got fixes it needed out of the gate. That was really really unfortunate.
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Think you’re wrong about this. There is no political benefit for any of those red state Dems to vote for this bill. It isn’t popular in those states.
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Manchin actually has come out really, really strongly in opposition. West Virginia gets screwed in 3 part harmony in this bill and he knows it. The drug treatment elimination alone will decimate his state.
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I’ve said this in other posts, but Trump/Ryan should be considered the favorites to pass this legislation in the House. Majority parties usually win those ‘test of party loyalty’ votes, especially in the first year of a new President. They are further behind than they should be, which is a testament to how bad this legislation is.
It would be an upset win if this bill were defeated in the House, but I wouldn’t be surprised because I don’t think Ryan is all that competent and I think he’s just winging it on the whip count.
The refusal of the Republican-controlled House to go forward with the standard patching-up process is a big part of what drove Roberts to join the liberal bloc of justices. And when you’ve lost a solid partisan like Roberts…
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I think you are spot on with this. In fact, I’ve been keeping an eye out for his republican counterpart from the state to jump ship too. She’s seems conspicuously mum on the topic.
Yes, but I suspect Democrats are always primed to screw up a sure thing. A drunk Kate Upton could ask them upstairs for a drink and they’d beg off because the garage needed cleaned.
O’blue eyes is desperate to get his name on something. If not a budget, ACA repeal. Be careful what you wish for RYAN. Obama will be remembered for creating something for the good of mankind and Ryan will be remembered for the destruction that follows his determination.
And on the other side of the mountains, Rand Paul is hard against the bill too. Not to be overly generalizing, but this bill is AWFUL for Appalachia, even worst than it is generally. These are areas that had huge numbers of uninsured before the ACA and it’s come way, way down since then. This bill is likely to throw many of the people who just got on insurance right back off.
Appalachia is not going to be concerned about their medical insurance getting cocked up. Soon they’ll all be rolling in dough extracting and selling coal to the highest bidder. They’ll be able to easily afford private insurance premiums. Just ask’em, they’ll tell you. Trump said that’s what’s going to happen, it must be true.
I honestly don’t know what to do for Appalachian coal country. Even if demand for coal increases, it’s going to come from expanded mining out west. The mines in Appalachia are mostly played out of easy to get coal and it’s primarily underground mining, which is incredibly inefficient when compared to open pit mining, as done out in the Powder River basin. Most of these towns came into existence for no other reason than to mine coal. This sort of thing happened all the time out in the mining boom towns out west. When the local silver mine played out, everyone went away and you got a ghost town. That isn’t happening in Appalachia and I’m not sure what to do to help these folks. If the mines are gone, the towns have no real reason to exist anymore.
…names Paulie? or have you developed the ‘I don’t recollect that meeting’ syndrome so prevalent amongst RePugnicants…
Start restoring the strip-mined mountain tops. Put something into the vast holes in the ground. Storage facility for FauxNewsies… Roger stone, Napolitano to name a couple, residences for Trump PsychoPhants.
The government could enact a Federal jobs program similar to the approach FDR employed to help depressed areas recover from the Great Depression. While it had its critics the WPA put millions to work at a time they desperately needed a job and a paycheck.
Then again the Federal Government is evil and needs drowned in a bathtub. There’s that.
But doing what? A lot of the WPA projects were done away from home. Tons of men were sent to build infrastructure projects out west. Do we want to put half of Appalachia building sidewalks in Utah? Maybe we do.
On a side note, oh moderator, can we move this conversation about Appalachia to a new thread? I want to continue it, but it’s not remotely related to this topic.