Republicans have really gotten themselves into a mess with their pledge to repeal the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare. They’ve already suffered an embarrassing defeat when they tried to repeal it earlier this month and had to withdraw the bill. Now, they’ve got a new version that’s just as bad as the old one and they’re going to try it again.
Conservatives in the House Freedom Caucus, led by Rep. Mark Meadows (NC-11), have warmed to the new bill because it allows states to get waivers so insurers don’t have to offer “essential services” like maternity care, mental health or substance abuse treatment. The bill would also allow waivers to bring back pre-existing conditions. However, it would exempt Members of Congress from sharing in the pain. Moderate Republicans don’t like it, and with good reason: it will probably cause some of them to lose re-election.
There’s a lot of inside ball going on inside the GOP caucus. The House Freedom Caucus members are on one side and the moderate Tuesday Group are on the other. A co-chair of the Tuesday Group, Rep. Tom MacArthur, has been negotiating with the HFC but apparently not with the consent of some his fellow members of the Tuesday Group. MacArthur seems to have rolled out the deal without talking to his friends first. Several moderate Republicans still say they can’t support the bill.
At the same time MacArthur and company are pushing the new replace-and-repeal bill, Trump is rolling out his new tax cut plan. That bill only works if they have the savings from repeal of some of the Obamacare taxes. Now Republicans have two big bills in the works that are dependent on each other. The repeal bill might be voted on this week or early next so it will never get the vetting it deserves. And Senate Republicans are already expressing their skepticism. That could complicate matters for the tax cut.
In the Obama years, Republicans proved that they’re great at obstruction. Now, they’re proving that they’re lousing at governing. They control both Houses of Congress, the White House and Supreme Court but they can’t seem to get much done. And most of what they want to accomplish, gutting Obamacare and cutting taxes for the rich, is not very popular with the American people. Trump has historically low approval ratings and Democrats lead significantly in the generic ballot. 2018 and could be a rough year to be a Republican.
Thomas Mills is the founder and publisher of PoliticsNC.com. Before beginning PoliticsNC, Thomas spent twenty years as a political and public affairs consultant. Learn more >
You cannot govern, if you hate government.
All of your comments are so on-point. I wish more people could understand what is really happening – so many who voted for Trump and the other GOP congressmen are being deceived and are working against their own best interests.
It is not just the the GOP control in DC and Raleigh shows a extraordinary level of incompetence, it is that they are blindly arrogant, inconsistent from week to week, and often unwilling to learn. The latter habit leaves them unable to find genuine compromise, or to see the problems for what they are.
They ignore actual economic facts, and preach to us about “choice” in health insurance options while presenting plans to eliminate precisely that concept. What choice does anyone with preexisting conditions have when the costs in high risk pools is so exorbitant that few have ever been able to afford them? Factual data on that point is simply passed over as though it is non-existent. Sort of like Trump and the pictures of the attendance at his swearing in ceremony.
I fully expect someone from Congress (or perhaps Sean Spicer in a press briefing) to insist that the sun rises in the west, and half the Congress will call any contrary information “fake news.”
It’s like Groundhog Day every day. The media wakes up and listens to spokespeople for the Republican agenda and forget that what they heard yesterday and every yesterday before that was a lie.
The Republicans treat the people and the press like gullible chumps, and the press obligingly responds by pretending that
the same old lies are something new.
Repeal and Replace may have worked if there had ever been an actual replacement, but there never was. Repeal and Replace was supposed to work like this: Repeal the Affordable Care Act, then stumble around for the next 20 years like a drunk looking for lost car keys. “I had that replacement plan somewhere. Maybe it’s over here. No, it’s over there. Where is that thing?”
The question of national health insurance has been on the docket for decades. It was a project that made Hillary Clinton the most hated woman in America during Bill Clinton’s first term. The Republicans have had decades to fashion a suitable plan. In fact, they did. They created the Affordable Care Act, enacted it into law in Massachusetts and it sort of works.
Our President is a pathological liar. Every news story should begin with a caveat: “Donald Trump rarely tells the truth.” Or the stories should end with: “Does he seriously expect us to believe that?” He is surrounded by Baghdad Bobs who try desperately to make things he says sound somewhat believable.
About replacement, he has said: “It’s really getting good.”
No, it is not.
Paul Ryan and his colleagues have attempted to repeal the Affordable Care Act in the neighborhood of 60 plus times. I have lost count. Anytime things get a little slow in Congress, they take another shot at it. It makes them feel busy.
But Replacement? That’s hard. The President’s promise to make it better and more affordable is, of course, a lie. The Republicans are not interested in better coverage; they are interested in cutting benefits and taxes. You cannot cut benefits and improve them at the same time. Taking away medical insurance from 20 million people means death for thousands of Americans (some of whom are Republicans) and bankruptcy for thousands more.
Republicans may continue to vote for Trump even when he staffs the White House with Russian operatives and criminals, even when he treats women like meat, even when he breaks every campaign promise, even when he uses the White House as a billboard for his hotel business, even when he spends tens of millions of dollars on his personal needs in Washington, New York and Florida, but dead Republicans, no matter how gullible, cannot vote. The Affordable Care Act is keeping some of his constituents alive.
The fact is simply that Republicans don’t want to do anything for anyone except for the rich. I learned this lesson 70 years ago in western North Carolina from my father. The GOP has not changed its stripes in all these years.
Repeat after me: THESE PEOPLE CANNOT GOVERN!
Correct. The GOP is a bomb-throwing party except when they have a shyster of their own in the Oval Office. Republicans have not been a governing party in years and years.
The fact is simply that Republicans don’t want to do anything for anyone except for the rich. I learned this lesson 70 years ago in western North Carolina from my father. The GOP has not changed its stripes in all these years.
My Father shared the same sentiments Rick. From the same region of the state too. I received my political indoctrination from him a long time ago as to the differences between Democrats and Republicans and you’re right; the GOP is still dressed the same, they’ve just learned how to market and sell their stupidity to everyday folks.