I was assured that Karen Handel’s trouncing of the zone jumper boy would instantly fix everything. Yet, now, we here murmurs in the Senate against Trump-RyanCare, or ObamaCare II. Rand and his three fellow conservative musketeers lead a revolt.
The four conservative GOP senators — Rand Paul of Kentucky, Mike Lee of Utah, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Ted Cruz of Texas — released a joint statement Thursday afternoon outlining their concerns:
“Currently, for a variety of reasons, we are not ready to vote for this bill, but we are open to negotiation and obtaining more information before it is brought to the floor. There are provisions in this draft that represent an improvement to our current healthcare system but it does not appear this draft as written will accomplish the most important promise that we made to Americans: to repeal Obamacare and lower their healthcare costs.”
“It looks like a reiteration or a keeping of Obamacare,” Sen. Paul told reporters Thursday afternoon. “I’m a ‘no’ on the bill currently.”
Trump promised us “the best healthcare.” McConnell said he would rip up ObamaCare “root and branch.” Ryan whimpered something. What gives. Rush told us for 25 years the Republicans were the conservatives. Odd, that they would keep having problems getting legislation past that element within their own party.
“Yeah … no.” Freedom Works.
The shame of it is that these fools are in complete control. The loyal opposition in disarray, unable to win sure runoffs, the Jellyfish Party could simply ram through a full repeal and be done with it – the ensuing “Russia” accusations aside.
No, the real shame is the continuing charade of the “two-party system” and its…
No, wait, the actual shame is that the people believe in any of this. It’s 2017. 10,000 years of political lies would seem enough.
I suppose “fund it so we can kill it” ranks up there with “pass it so we can find out what’s in it.” It’s no cause to hunt them down on the diamond, but the current GOP crop has to be the most ridiculous bunch of idiot losers in legislative history. Has anyone any idea where the ObamaCare repeal/replace/repeal and replace/amend/screw up is possibly going? It seems the GOP doesn’t:
Top congressional Republicans have delivered a surprising plea to the Trump administration: Don’t sabotage the Affordable Care Act while we try to repeal it.
Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander on Thursday became the second GOP committee chairmen in as many weeks to urge the administration to continue payments of subsidies to insurance companies that are considered crucial to stabilizing the individual market and preventing sharp premium increases.
Under President Trump’s direction, the administration has refused to guarantee that it will pay the subsidies, which are known as “cost-sharing reduction payments” and help insurers keep down deductibles for low-income customers while still making a profit. The decision has infuriated Democrats and insurers alike, and several companies have cited the uncertainty caused by the administration as the reason for exiting Obamacare exchanges in certain states and counties.
In an unusual alliance, Republicans in Congress are now joining the effort to pressure Trump to make the payments even after they sued the Obama administration over their legality three years ago. “These payments will help to avoid the real possibility that millions of Americans will literally have zero options for insurance in the individual market in 2018,” Alexander told Tom Price, the secretary of health and human services, at a hearing on Thursday. “We have a collapsing individual market as a result of the Affordable Care Act, and as part of a transition from a collapsing market to a stable market in which Americans have more choices of insurance at a lower-cost, I believe Republicans will need to temporarily support some things we don’t want to do in the long term, and I would hope Democrats would do that as well.”
You, our man, do what we sued the other guy to stop a few years ago. In the meanwhile, we’ll busy ourselves doing nothing.
These fools could have: 1) fixed the current system; 2) replaced it with … anything, or; 3) just plain repealed it. They could have done this already. The same crowd rammed a full and complete repeal through Congress a few years back when Obama was in the White House. Naturally, he vetoed the Bill. They could do the exact same thing now, with Trump ithcing to sign off on it. A Bill to do that is ready right now and has been in the House hopper since January. Instead they dally and posture in the most pitiful manner possible.
And people vote for this?! Some pay money to support this?
Obama and Co. gave America a failed policy from the start. Just about everyone with an IQ north of room temperature knew that. They still know it. The Democrats, the media, and the medical/insurance scam industry are already starting to shift the blame for the systemic failures of the doomed-from-the-start law to the GOP and even Trump. Congressional Republicans are moving Heaven and Earth to help justify the shift.
Again, the healthcare options are, in order of best to worst:
Free market system (never again in the USA);
Universal coverage through private distribution (the Swiss system – also not likely);
Universal socialist coverage (the Soviet system – possible and better than:);
Continuing to prop up the ObamaCare tax and obscure system (where we are);
The let’s drag our feet while everything goes to hell, start a repeal and yank it, again and again, Republican approach – prop up what we once sued to stop; let it all fall apart; get people good and shooting angry; stop the mandates but keep the taxes; etc., etc., etc.; and
Outlaw healthcare and put everyone on arsenic…
It’s amazing, given the comparison, that numbers 3 and 6 actually seem somewhat attractive.
The Daily Hatch.
Please, please remember this come November of 2018 and 2020.
Around 2.2 billion people – 30 per cent of the total global population – were found to be too fat.
The majority of these were ill as a result.
Levels of obesity have doubled in more than 70 countries since the 80s, according to the major study in the New England Journal of Medicine.
In the UK, a quarter of adults are obese – with a body mass index (BMI) over 30.
It compares to just one in 35 in the 70s.
And one million British kids are also dangerously fat, around eight per cent.
Millions are dying nowadays due to completely preventable causes.
Supersized! Getty.
This bodes well for an author prepping a fitness and health book. Hopefully all 2 Billion have access to Amazon and $12.99.
Otherwise hope fades quickly. The article concludes, as most mainstream publications must, with a pleas for urgent government action. Why? Why? Why? Does it really take a government program to stop a cheeseburger? I don’t recall that from my personal story.
Anyway, governments and health management don’t really go together well, at least not in the U.S. The GOP just announced it was losing the war to reform ObamaCare – apparently to itself. Typical.
If you need to shed a few lbs. – and if you’re an American, you do – don’t wait on some nonexistent federal assistance that will never come. Do it yourself.
You can check on your little congress-critter and its vote here: Roll Call 256.
The Senate may prove a more difficult playground. The Bill is far from perfect. Yet the amazing thing, today, was … could that have been leadership??? from the Republicans? This pre-existing condition calls for a drink.
They should run it up for a vote today around 1 PM.
The U.S. House of Representatives was set on Thursday for a cliffhanger vote to repeal Obamacare, as Republican leaders worked to deliver President Donald Trump a win for one of his top legislative priorities.
House Republican leaders have expressed confidence the bill would pass and several party moderates who previously objected to it got behind it on Wednesday, giving the effort new momentum.
Still, the vote was expected to be close. Even if the measure passes the House, it faces daunting odds in the Senate where Republicans hold a narrower majority.
The U.S. House of Representatives will vote Thursday on a controversial Republican bill that would repeal and replace key parts of Obamacare, the GOP’s majority leader said Wednesday night.
“We’re going tomorrow, yes we are,” said Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.
Asked he if had the votes to win passage of the bill, McCarthy told NBC News, “Yes we do.”
“We will pass this bill,” McCarthy said. “I feel great about the [vote] count.”
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., said several days ago that he would not hold the vote without having those winning votes in hand.
No idea if this is the same plan floated a few months ago and aborted at the last second. Honestly I’m beginning to forget what the law is all about and who these “Republicans” are… We’ll see…
Sack / Star Tribune.
Of course, Speaker Ryan could pull the vote tonight depending on what his magic eight ball says.
“Effective as of Dec. 31, 2017, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is repealed, and the provisions of law amended or repealed by such Act are restored or revived as if such Act had not been enacted,” the bill states.”
– Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
Mo Brooks / Scribed.
The beauty of the thing is that it is simple, effective, and out in the open (unlike Ryan’s Whack-a-Bill failure). Thus, the beauty guarantees the GOP will never pass it.
Glenn Harlan Reynolds accurately details the incomprehensible Republican failure and stupidity last week in D.C.
The plan to replace Obamacare with a new bill crafted by House Speaker Paul Ryan has failed, and embarrassingly so. And that failure is part and parcel of a larger failure of the Republican-led Congress to push an agenda in the new administration.
Talking to a friend at lunch not long ago, he expressed his amazement that the House and Senate leadership didn’t have bills “lined up like airplanes on a runway” ready to take off in the new year. I was surprised, too.
It’s not like the need to do something about Obamacare was a surprise. Republicans have been promising to repeal it for most of a decade. And it’s not like Obamacare was popular or successful. Premiums are rising, providers are dropping out, and costs are going up. It’s true that the Obamacare bill, pushed through on a procedural technicality that avoided a filibuster but left it impossible to fix at the time, was a mess. It’s also true that the legislation was drafted, and the regulations implementing it were designed, in part to make it hard to undo.
Nonetheless, the Republican inability to deliver a bill that could get a majority in the GOP-led House is a colossal failure, and pretty much undercuts its entire reason for being. For years the congressional GOP leadership failed to deliver on promises to constituents, and offered the excuse that it couldn’t do anything without control of the White House. Well, they’ve got that, so what’s their excuse now? And where are the bills on infrastructure, on tax reform, on free speech?
The congressional GOP’s failure to deliver on its promises is one of the things that led to the election of President Trump. Now they’re still failing. What comes next?
If history has taught us anything about Republicans, then “what comes next” is more failure. The Atlanta Falcons of politics.
Last night I caught a few minutes of Judge Jeanine Pirro of Fox – I could not turn away as she utterly skewered Paul Ryan:
Paul Ryan needs to step down as Speaker of the House.
The reason? He failed to deliver the votes on his health care bill. The one trumpeted to repeal and replace ObamaCare. The one that he had seven years to work on. The one he hid under lock and key in the basement of Congress. The one that had to be pulled to prevent the embarrassment of not having enough votes to pass.
But this bill didn’t just fail — it failed when Republicans had the House, the Senate, the White House.
And the timing? It failed within the first 70 days of President Donald Trump’s administration. A president who made replacement of ObamaCare the hallmark of his campaign. And then used valuable political capital to accomplish it.
Americans elected the one man they believed could do it. A complete outsider. Someone beholden to no one — but them.
And Speaker Ryan, you come in, with all your swagger and experience, and you sell him a bill of goods which ends up a complete and total failure. And you allow our president, in his first one hundred days, to come out of the box like that? Based on what? Your legislative expertise? Your knowledge of the arcane ins and outs of the bill writing process? Your relationships? What? Your drinks at the Hay-Adams with your pals?
Folks, I want to be clear: this is NOT on President Trump. No one expected a businessman to completely understand the nuances, the complicated ins and outs of Washington and its legislative process. How would he know which individuals upon whom he would be able to rely? Many of them, friends and establishment colleagues of Speaker Ryan.
You, on the other hand, Speaker Ryan, know very well who the 15 hard liners, the 10 moderates, and all the other ones.
Amen. No, this one is not on Trump. This one and this one alone. No more passes in the future. He’s a smart enough man to learn how the jellyfish sting. Whether he’s willing to use what he learns and whether that is enough remains to be seen.
The whole 61st (61st!!) failure to repeal ObamaCare boiled down to not getting conservative Republicans on board. Hell, as Pirro says, they were physically locked out of the process. How could anyone have expected their support? The Bill could have been passed with their help and without a single Democrat vote in favor. This is strictly a GOP problem.
Their “solution” is strict GOP stupidity. The conservatives in the “conservative” party were not consulted, then. Now, instead on trying to get them on board, the GOP and Trump are opening to the idea of bringing Democrats into the fold. I wonder what their suggestions might entail?
And the GOP is splintering. Blaming those fellow conservatives who were never invited to participate, Rep. Ted Poe is abandoning the House Freedom Caucus.
Ted Poe / Twitter.
Despite decades of jading, I had high hopes for Trump’s Presidency. I still do though that old shade of green is creeping back into my views. If he cannot marshal this band of derelicts and losers into a solid party, then there isn’t much faith in his (their?) agenda. If that happens, one can expect similar failures on: the debt ceiling (a given no matter what); tax cuts; immigration; etc.
The whole thing starts to look like the Contract with America. Remember that stellar GOP success? Neither do I.
The Republicans are the Atlanta Falcons of politics. Losers from Loserville. Early last month the real Falcons showed the sporting world how to blow a 25-point lead, insurmountable by practical standards, and lose a Super Bowl in spectacular, if typical, Atlanta fashion. Yesterday, not to be out-done, the GOP squandered control of the House, the Senate, and the White House, losing their bid to reform ObamaCare for something like the 60th time.
It’s worse really, and not just because millions actually depend on the outcome. Atlanta lost to the greatest team, coach, and quarterback in history – all striding through the second half like no team has before (or likely will after). Trump, Ryan, and Co. “lost” to a Democrat party with no clear leadership, no agenda, and no motives. Failure to internally think, plan, and communicate led the Speaker to pull the AHCA Bill just prior to a vote.
Republicans abruptly pulled their health care bill from the House floor on Friday, just minutes ahead of a planned vote, dealing a devastating blow to efforts by President Donald Trump and the GOP to repeal and replace Obamacare.
“This is a disappointing day for us,” Speaker Paul Ryan told reporters shortly after the bill was yanked. “Doing big things is hard. All of us, myself included, will need time to reflect how we got to this moment, what we could have done to do it better.”
Ryan said he told Trump around noon the White House that they didn’t have the Republican votes needed to pass the bill. “I told him that the best thing I think to do is to pull this bill and he agreed with that decision,” Ryan said.
Speaking via phone later at 3:00 p.m. EST, Trump said Democrats in the House — all of whom had planned to vote against the bill — shoulder the blame for the defeat. “Obamacare is exploding,” the president said in the Oval Office. “With no Democrat support, we couldn’t quite get there. We were just a very small number of votes short in terms of getting our bill passed.”
“I’m disappointed,” Trump said, adding, “I’m a little surprised to be honest with you.”
Welcome to Washington, Mr. Trump. The irresistible force has met the immovable object. Even the Donald’s charismatic juggernaut has limits.
A friend and I debated whether the circus clown might be a better symbol for the GOP than the noble elephant. I think I’ve found a better. The elephant is large, powerful, dangerous even. And it is a smart animal, as animals go. No relation to the GOP in the 21st Century. No, a better mascot would be the jellyfish: a brainless, spineless creature dedicating to drifting the currents and soaking up nutrients. As seemingly harmless as it is useless, it can still deliver a nasty sting to those foolish enough to associate with it. Trump feels the burning sting this weekend.
Carlos Slim’s Blog.
In fairness, the Repubs have been working on repealing, repealing and replacing, or amending ObamaCare for seven years. Only seven. It took the Democrats over 15 years to craft the law – from Bill and Hillary’s hints in 1992-3 to Obama’s collusion with Big Insurance and the Devil in 2010. But the Dems really are stubborn like donkeys. They bide their time and plan strategically. The predictable failure of ObamaCare even fits their long-term plans for socialism.
The “conservatives” have no plans and no idea how to handle authority. Monday, they’ll be on to a similar debacle with tax cuts. However, then (or now), they will find the debt ceiling looming once again on the D.C. horizon. The debt will rise; it always does. This year promises, perhaps, some extra suspense and entertainment.
Well, as much of those things as a jellyfish can generate.
I’m considering putting “ObamaCare” to rest as a central reference. Now, it’s TrumpCare, the AHCA, instead of the lingering ACA. The GOP owns it now. And, now, they need to decide how to handle the matter. Rand Paul has some ideas:
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:
I think there’s easily 35 no votes right now so unless something happens in the next 24 hours, I would predict they pull the bill and start over. I think if conservatives stick together, they will have earned a seat at the table where real negotiation to make this bill an acceptable bill will happen. But it’s interesting what conservatives are doing to change the debate. We went from keeping the Obamacare taxes for a year—hundreds of billions of dollars—but they’re coming towards us because we’re standing firm. So we have to stick together, and if we do stick together there will be a real negotiation on this. The main goal I have is not to pass something that does not fix the situation. If a year from now, insurance rates and premiums are still going through the roof and it’s now a Republican plan it will be a disservice to the president and all of us if we pass something that doesn’t work.
There are choices: the ACA as is (failing); the AHCA (ACA-lite?); the previous repeal bill (vetoed by Obama, perhaps not by Trump?); complete socialized medicine (not popular but perhaps cheaper than the cobbled-together rat’s nest we have now), or; free market medicine (no longer in American vogue). Pick one, GOP.
Sergio Go / Twitter / Breitbart.
Trump was on the Hill this morning in an attempt to strong-arm support for the AHCA. Paul makes clear that may not have worked, at least not in the Senate. Still, pick one or the other. Ball’s in your court. It’s going to be the second or third choices or a hybrid, so get cracking.
PERRIN LOVETT 
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