Sunday, March 26, 2017
WKRLEM: What should President Trump do about Obamacare?
Chuckie Schumer is coming in his pants. Paul Ryan screwed the pooch when he couldn't deliver on the "repeal of Obamacare." He had seven years to prepare his response. Seven years to prepare his bill. To have an alternative that his caucus could support. That would pass muster in the Senate.
Now even the most die hard hater of Obama (of which I count myself as one) would concede that there are a couple of aspects of the plan that were good. The fact that you could not be denied because of a pre-existing condition. The fact that slacker millennials can be continued on their parents insurance. There might be one or two other things that were good. But there were a ton that sucked.
Lack of competition which would have been corrected by allowing people to buy from other states. The end of the mandate so people could decide not to buy if they didn't want to buy. The end of a one size fits all plan that forced you to buy coverage you didn't need. So nuns didn't have to pay for abortions or you didn't have to pay for mental health coverage if you were happy to be crazy. The tax penalty if you didn't have insurance should be gone.
All of that stuff should have been in the repeal act. They should have set it up in a two page bill and campaigned on it. Got the President to pump it out on the hustings. Force everyone to and up and down vote. Nuke the filibuster in the Senate. Get everyone on the record on a common sense bill that most Americans can be behind.
Schumer says he will negotiate if they do not "repeal" Obamacare. Now could they put all of those changes in without technically repealing it? Are the semantics that important. I know President Trump is Anti-Semantic but who knows. Would it be in his interest to cut a deal with Schumer? Who would suffer? Well maybe the Freedom Caucus who swore up and down they would repeal Obamacare and refused to pull the trigger. Will they get a better deal if President Trump pivots to the middle? Why should President Trump have any loyalty to the Republicans who fought him every step of the way? Should he put forth his plan and rally the people to it?
I think his first move is to get his person in as Speaker. Think outside of the box. Somebody that would put the media, the Democrats, the Rhinos and the duopoly back on their heels. Somebody that would have to be loyal to him because he plucks them from the back bench and puts them in as Speaker. Someone conservative but not a rigid ideologue. Someone who can push his common sense agenda against both sides of the political divide.
My candidate?
Mia Love.
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64 comments:
Mia love has no seniority and seniority is everything on the Hill, but your point is well taken. According to House rules, the new speaker would have to get all the conservatives ( about 20 - 25% of the members) and would have to get enough Whigs or even reach across the aisle. That means whomever it is would have to be something of a compromise.
The floor is open for nominations.
I linked a Surber piece a couple of days ago where he noted Trump will bail out of a deal if he didn't like it. That happened here, but all his remarks about letting IdiotCare crash and burn suggest he may have had additional motives, such as building up a large enough base of people who blame the Demos before he throws out the life preserver.
But I do agree with you there was a lot to like in Ryan's bill and most of those things ought to survive the next go.
I think Mia Love is a great off the wall out of the box pick.
She would be hard for the Democrats and media to attack because we can just play the racism card.
She does not have seniority but so what? Trump was elected to shake things up. To do things differently than the old ways of doing things.
She is sufficiently conservative to appease the Freedom Caucus and adaptable enough to work with the Rhino's.
Secret Nazi Health Care
forcing insurance companies to pay for everything because it's all deemed sacred - what's the end game to that? lets just let Trump give us single payer.
What's the end game for "everything and everyone should be covered"? 100% government controlled health care.
When dems say it - it's gross. When Trump says it - wow super magic.
Trump's courting democrats now. Good luck.
I stand with Rand.
Lets let Trump, the god of New York Lib-town, give us single payer.
How much wealth redistribution can we handle!? Winning!
How much free health care can we handle? Winning! There's no end to the need for free health care.
Colorado shot down the single payer referendum on the 2016 ballot-- it went in an over-whelming defeat.
The Trump god can git er dun.
You know the Speaker of the House does not have to be a Representative. Basically anyone could be Speaker (although to be in the chain for succession, the speaker has to be over 35 and a Natural Born US Citizen). So why not think waaaaay outside the box.
Yeah, yeah, the House would never go for it.
Then again, Trump would never win...
Each aspect of the bill should have been passed or rejected as an individual act instead of being crammed into one bill. Insurance operating over state lines in a nationally competitive way, one bill on its own. Portability, one bill. Pre-existing conditions, one bill. etc. etc. This would have been much more palatable and you easier.
Sometimes I'm late to the party and you guys don't get to read what I write. So I'm posting this here from a post a couple of days ago. Maybe some of you did, so please forgive me for reposting:
You guys aren't seeing the larger picture. Trump knew this wouldn't go through even though he sold it. What he did do, is sacrifice the immediate need for the larger goal and that is, is that Paul Ryan is eating a giant log of shit and will most likely no longer be trusted with legislation anymore. Now he can say, "Fuck Ryan, I'm doing my own thing. Get on board." and looks Ryan in the face and says that he is basically unworthy of the speakership. This is a loss for Ryan, not for Trump. All Trump did was get behind it. He didn't write it, he didn't hide it, he wanted a deal, but it was a win for him with he won it or lost it. Trump hedged on the win, but instead, he won on the short.
The Islamocrats are hooting and hollering that they won. What the fuck did they win? They passed ACA without a single republican vote in the middle of the night with Nancy Pelosi saying that we have to pass it to know what it's in it. People hate this legislation. Republicans showed they still now how to lose. Trump is going to sit back and wait for this thing to collapse, then he is going to wait for them to show up and ask him to fix it.
People see the immediate damage on how Ryan fucked up by first hiding this bill and not sharing details, only to have it revealed that it was a shit show. Ryan proves that he cannot and does not know how to win or write legislation that is a win for the American people. He is unworthy, which is a shame because I had high hopes for him, but he's only proven that he is nothing more than a craven liar and a coward. He's going to lose his speakership and rightly so. I suspect a freedom caucus member will take his place, that is if republicans don't lose the house or senate in 2018.
Republicans may be in power, by they do not understand how to win in the public eye. They let Islamocrats walk all over them. they have no messaging, they have no direction, they are weak, they are perennial losers. Repeal this fucking law. Let the chips fall where they may. Let insurance companies operate over state lines. That should be a bill on its own. No other bullshit. Give portability to each citizen. That should be a bill on it's own. Pass these things as singular, individual items. Not jiffy jam them down like a massive omnibus bill. Republicans are fucking dumb and Islamocrats won't know what hit them.
Forcing the insurance companies to do something? Where do you get that?
There are only two things I would force them to do. Cover pre-existing conditions so policies are portable. Increasing the amount of time children can be covered with an additional premium. Not indentured servitude.
That's not anything that they can't swallow considering the money they are making. Sorry.
Stephen Green
"Democrats spent 14 months putting ObamaCare together and — this should be in a book called Legislation for Dummies marketed to Republicans — putting together the votes to get it passed.
It should also be noted that Democrats were perfectly willing to sacrifice their majority to get ObamaCare passed, knowing that they had a once-in-a-generation opportunity to concentrate more money and power in Washington.
The has GOP has shown no such dedication to its stated principle of returning money and power to the people."
"Trump's courting democrats now. Good luck."
If he can get the support of about 30 moderate Democrats or Democrats in Trump states he will have a bill that is more or less bi-partisan. It would pass muster in the Senate with Collins and Graham and Muck-a-fuck-face.
It is more important to fix the Health Insurance debacle than to kowtow to the Freedom Caucus. Most of them ran for the hills when the Access Hollywood Tape came out. They were never Trump supporters. They are only interested in being re-elected. Not in solving problems.
Trump is going to try to govern from the middle as much as he can. I don't see that as a bad thing. It is how he got elected. Middle America. Not the extremes.
The bill, as written, is O-Care 2.0. No thank you.
The Freedom Caucus stands for me.
Trump and Ryan, on this issue, do not.
The GOP is only dedicated to getting re-elected. They never accomplish anything. Ever.
Trump needs to fix healthcare if he can.
I was thrown off two insurance companies in two years. One dropped small business plans. The other dropped individual plans.
Competition across state lines would stop that. Why didn't the Republican plan have that proviso? You know why. It was a show vote in failure theater.
Trump needs to come up with a common sense plan and get some votes from both sides of the aisle. That will be much more effective than a party line vote.
"The Freedom Caucus stands for me."
I get it. They stand for you. And about 20% of the rest of the country. Just like Ted Cruz.
They stand on principle. They fail again and again. They accomplish nothing but they look damn good doing it.
Trump should never have signed on to Ryan's plan. But you will not sign on to Trump's plan. Nor will the freedom caucus. Trump needs to ignore Maxine Waters and John Lewis and AL Franken. He also needs to ignore the Freedom Caucus. They are opposite sides of the same coin.
Trump needs to offer a nationalistic simple plan that he can sell to the vast majority of Americans who just want to get their health insurance. People like me. Who need their Xeralto and not a lecture from some Congressman.
The absolute worst thing that happened to the insurance industry through Obamacare and the thing that put the nail in the coffin of being affordable is the insistence that people who are ALREADY sick, uninusurable, have pre existing conditions get the same coverage at the same price as the healthy. THE WORST.
If the insurance companies are not allowed to adjust premiums for risk then the cost of covering those already sick people has to be spread all over the insurance pool. THIS is why the costs have gone out of sight for premiums and why deductibles are so high.
If you own a car in some area where theft and collisions are going to be more frequent....higher risk....such as LA or NYC, then your auto insurance companies can charge you more. If you live out in podunk Iowa where there are fewer cars, theft is low, accidents are rare....then your insurance premiums are lower than the rubes who live in NYC. This is what insurance is. Charging for RISK and giving discounts for non risk.
It is just basic economics. If you force everyone to pay for the risks in NYC then everyone's premiums will go up even if you never ever plan to set foot in NYC.
This isn't insurance, covering the already sick who either didn't bother to get insurance before the fact. (Once you are insured under health policies, they cannot raise your rates once you get sick, as long as you keep the policy. It is theft from the healthy and those who are taking care of themselves to not get sick.
Until they fix that issue....and I have several thoughts on how.....any replacement that includes this is a dead duck.
Sorry Troop- Ryan and Trump crawled into bed together and failed.
That's not on me.
After all the pretzel talk, the only thing Ryan, Trump and the gang needed to do was to repeal ObamaCare. Repeal it.
They tried 60 times before. They promised during the campaign.
Courage- out the window.
I hear what you are saying Dust Bunny Queen.
But what about people who have a pre-existing condition. Or have catastrophic health care issues. Do we just ignore them? Do we just not treat them the way they do in the UK?
I totally agree that you should be able to buy lower cost insurance from another state at a lower rate. You can pick a policy that doesn't cover things you don't need like drug rehab or pregnancy if you are old or mental health issues if you don't mind being crazy.
But what do you do with the truly sick people. Americans. Not immigrants. But born and bred Ammericans who have fallen on hard times because they are sick. Yes maybe they couldn't afford insurance. What do we do about them?
Nothing? Let them rot?
What's the plan?
I agree that Trump made a bad mistake in trusting Ryan. I wanted him to oust Ryan from the get go. I want him to oust him now.
I don't sign on to the Freedom Caucus. They are losers. They have always been losers. They are only interested in their ideology. They will not compromise to get something done. I don't want them to sign on to the Democratic plan. I want them to come up with their own plan. Where is it? They had the same seven years to do it as Ryan. Why didn't they introduce competing legislation? Any congressman can introduce a bill. They could have introduced a plain repeal bill. Why didn't they do that. Any congressman can introduce such legislation as a point of personal privilege. I bet Trump would have signed up with that bill just to shove it up Ryan's ass.
Your Trump hate is showing. He made a big mistake trusting Ryan. He would make an even bigger mistake trusting the Freedom Caucus.
Trump needs to promulgate a nationalistic bill benefiting the middle and working class people who voted for him. If he doesn't he will regret it.
Ryan and the Freedom Caucus are just as much the enemy of the American people as Chuck Schumer and the Congressional Black Caucus. They are focused on their own political concerns. Not on the well being of normal Americans who voted for Donald Trump.
President Trump needs to do what he said he was going to do. I hope and pray that he will.
But he should not trust anyone.
Creeping socialism. How on earth did we manage before ObamaCare?
Why - we were all dying in the streets!
Washington DC insiders deciding the details of health care for 330 million people across the nation will never work unless it fits on one page double spaced and never gets longer. It never ceases to amaze me how much faith people put in DC politicians who have no interest in giving you power over your own lives. It's that amnesia thing again where you watch them fuck up everything they touch over and over and still wake up every day expecting them to solve your problems. They are stupid, corrupt, and self-serving, and even when they are righteous they are still human and don't have the tools to do what has always been impossible: run your life for you. Our nation is soft with helpless cowards who don't do whats required to manage their own lives or those of their families. Nobody wants to make sacrifices. They want to be carried like children by those who do manage their own affairs, but those shrinking number of people can't carry all of the lazy, selfish, weak, and cowardly that we now have reaching out to grab mommy's dress for support. National health care will always be disaster as long as it's national, becuase life is hard, and the government can't make that go away. They can only make it harder by tying up the resources and gumming up the works. You will never be satisfied with healthcare again, because you gave in to the idea of centralized control.
Trump and Bannon threatened everyone if they did not support the bill.
You want to disconnect Trump from it. You can't.
If Trump starts to push single payer ( VA care for all) Trump's fans would scream YEAH! Go Trump.
Bagoh 100%.
The pretzel logic: Ryan is to blame. but how dare that Freedom Caucus come out against Trump's holy and precious plan.
It is a quandary. We certainly don't want to let people die because they can't afford insurance or can't afford the drugs. We don't want giant give away programs either.
However, the reason that insurance is so expensive is the way the system is now. Covering all things makes it so expensive. Not portable across state lines. Not competitive across state lines.
For those who are truly poor and unable to get coverage a medicaid type of coverage or welfare coverage is available and it is available now. The reason that THAT system is failing is over use and because of overuse, the reimbursements to the medical professionals is so low Doctors and Hospitals don't want to give treatment.
Medicaid is overuses by illegals (who don't legally have any rights to this) and people who consider it a 'cover everything' policy. People who go to the ER for diaper rash, small scrapes, to try to get drugs and all sorts of nothing burger events instead of waiting to see a doctor.
For those who are on the financial margins. And that is a lot of people. Not poor enough for 'welfare' but unable to afford coverage and not covered by a work plan..... subsidies for those people could be made available for marginal and/or catastrophic polices with basic care available for nothing or at very little cost. Basic care being an annual check up. Inoculations. A drug allowance for basic meds. These plans could be converted to more robust policies with no rating at a later date if they have more ability to pay for one.
Existing policies need to be portable, so that if you move out of state or lose your job there are provisions where you can get or keep coverage without being "rated".
If you have been continually and responsibly paying for insurance and you lose your job, move and lose your coverage for any reason other than you just decided you would rather buy an Iphone or something....you should be able to get a new policy without being rated. For example. If I am working at a company and they close, my coverage should be extended, for 6 months say, until I get another job or buy a minimal policy. If I decide to move from California to Arizona, my existing policy should be portable so I can get another one in the new State.
Just not wanting to pay for insurance is not an excuse for making everyone else pay for it for you. If you decide at age 28 that you are so healthy, will never get sick and would rather buy a new car and then you get sick later.....tough shit. You made a bad bet. Go on the welfare system then. Pay cash for your treatment.
All of the above do require some government programs, but they wouldn't be the behemoth that we currently have with Obamacare or Rinocare.
It isn't that I don't have any experience with or empathy for this. My husband was uninsurable, diagnosed with diabetes at age 50 when we were getting a new life insurance policy (which was denied), self employed all of his life and never had any insurance.....ever. He was one of those invincible 28 year olds. We had 15 years of walking on eggshells until we could get covered under Medicare and a Supplement plan.
Never once did we think it was someone else's responsibility to pay for his bad decisions.
This country is going to shit because whether Democrat or Republican, we keep electing people who treat us like children, who foolishly believe they can fix things from offices in DC by passing reams of paper written by young bureaucrats imagining themselves as virtuous saviors picking and choosing regulations from a buffet of dead ideas before going out for cocktails and pats on the back. I'm sure it will work this time.
I don't care what the solutions are, if they come out of DC, they will not work. The system is not designed to make good law for the whole country on something as personal and important as health care. I like a nice peach pie, simple thing, but I bet DC couldn't make one that was affordable, edible, and ready to eat before 2024.
On the other hand....we could go back to a system that worked in the past for the indigent and sick....
Charities. Religious groups. Mutual aid societies.
Well Bags I said originally that they should pass a two page law that will address the problems.
Believe it or not Ted Cruz had a very good op-ed that addresses what should be done. He addresses everything except pre-existing conditions. I could sign on to that. President Trump could sign on to that. Why wasn't that the proposal? Why didn't the Freedom Caucus and Senator Cruz put that out there as an alternative?
I understand the Trump haters want to hate on Trump because he trusted Ryan. You are not wrong when you say he should not have fought hard for Ryan. But you will not support any reasonable compromise he might come up with. Rigid ideologues never do.
It's not about Trump hate, Troop. It's about reality.
Trump is the one who pushed Ryan's plan.
Dust Bunny Queen said...
On the other hand....we could go back to a system that worked in the past for the indigent and sick....
Charities. Religious groups. Mutual aid societies.
I don't think that health care can ever go back to a pure dog eat dog capitalistic marketplace where there is no safety net of some sort. It is not politically possible. First you have all the liberals, socialists and communists that are about half of the population. When you add on the working class and union guys and elderly people who need health care you have a very healthy majority who want some kind of health care with some safeguards.
Trump is the king. Nobody stopped him from listening to Cruz or Rand Paul.
Trump did push Ryan's plan. He was wrong to trust Ryan. He is wrong to trust the Republicans. He is wrong to trust the Democrats. None of them want to work with him.
He only has the support of his voters. Everyone else is against him. The liberals. The media. The conservative media. The Freedom Caucus.
Trump has the coal miners. The factory workers. The patriotic Americans who want to Make America Great Again.
He has to put forth a bill that is simple and that he can sell. That he can use to put pressure on enough politicians to carry it out.
Why didn't Cruz and Rand Paul put up some legislation? Why didn't they have someone in the House offer an alternative bill to what Ryan came up with. Trump doesn't love Ryan. He would have been happy to sign on to something to diminish him and repeal Obamacare and protect his voters.
Trump signed on to what he thought was the Republican plan. He thought that the Freedom Caucus was behind it. Instead they sabotaged it. They wanted to continue their starring roles in failure theater.
Cruz and Rand are senators. Legislation starts in the House.
Trying to blame the hated Cruz and the hated Rand isn't going to work. Trump and Ryan gave us O-Care 2.0, and it failed. It failed because we don't need more government intervention, we need less. It failed because, thank heavens, enough members of the house were not going to be bullied by Steven Bannon.
Listen to Ted. Ted Makes Sense More Detail
Portability and continuous coverage/renewability address a lot of the problem of pre-existing conditions.
It failed because rigid ideologues in the House did not negotiate to make changes that they would accept to repeal and replace Obamacare. Congressman Poe resigned from the Caucus. He said they would vote against the Ten Commandments. Because they only know how to be in the opposition. Not how to put forward sensible legislation.
I am not blaming Cruz or Rand Paul. I am saying that they are full of shit. They certainly could have worked with someone in the House to promulgate legislation that would repeal and replace Obamacare. They had seven years to come up with it.
To repeat for the people who are slow. Trump was totally, horribly wrong to trust Paul Ryan. To work with Paul Ryan. To work with the Republican leadership. Bannon was wrong to support this bill as strongly as he did. He hates Ryan. He wants Ryan out. But he still tried to help him. Big mistake. Bigly.
The blame game is a waste of time.
Just fix it.
Trump told everyone to vote on it as is. or else.
"The blame game is a waste of time."
"Trump told everyone to vote on it as is. or else."
The blame game is only ok if you get to blame Trump, Bannon, Miller and Kushner. That's how it works these days.
Trump made a big mistake trusting Paul Ryan. He made a big mistake pushing the Republican bill. Pushing the so called "conservative bill."
Trump put this bill out there the way he normally does things. Take it or leave it. If they weren't going to take it he could walk away and let Obamacare collapse of its own internal conflicts. When Trump and Bannon got involved they played to win. Hard and nasty. They lost this one. They need to learn from this. Not to work with the Freedom Caucus anymore. Period.
It might help if we narrowed down the problems to those which are real and not imaginary.
Portability:
HIPPA, passed almost unanimously in 1996, provided for portability for those enrolled in group insurance plans with some restrictions for those who let that coverage lapse for a period of time. It also guaranteed continuous coverage for those enrolled in individual plans if they remained in their existing plan. This leaves a relatively small number of people who did not have insurance coverage and develop a medical condition. Prior to Obamacare these people could be denied coverage and left to pay their own medical bills. Whether we call them deadbeats or unfortunates they exist.
Dying in the streets:
A solution to this problem was available before Obamacare. If you had a pre-existing condition which required medical care you did not have the money to fully pay for and no insurance coverage then, pre-Obamacare, you spent down your assets and became eligible for Medicaid. If you required immediate expensive care that you could not pay for then you got the care and when the bills came due you declared bankruptcy and walked away from most of the cost. Not pleasant, but irresponsibility has a price.
We're left with two options:
Return to the status quo before Obamacare with some modifications to somewhat alleviate the pain for the deadbeats/unfortunates or continue Obamacare with some modifications to somewhat alleviate the pain of those who are paying increased prices for their insurance and the taxpayers who are paying for the federal subsidies which are necessary for Obamacare to function.
Ryan's plan leaned strongly leaned toward the latter option. Those of us who found that unacceptable (including the Freedom Caucus) rejected it. Exactly why his plan did not lean strongly toward the first option is something I do not fully understand.
"Exactly why his plan did not lean strongly toward the first option is something I do not fully understand."
I think it was really a poison pill. It was set up to do the bidding of the insurance companies not the people. That is Ryan all the way.
If the Freedom Caucus was really interested in passing something they would have given amendments and changes that could have been incorporated into the plan to abolish Obamacare. I don't think they really want to pass anything at all. They just want to complain and fund raise. They are not invested in solving the problem. Trump is not wed to any sort of plan. If they came forward with changes he would have been fine with it. Why didn't they do that?
It is because they only want to star in failure theater.
1. "If the Freedom Caucus was really interested in passing something they would have given amendments and changes that could have been incorporated into the plan to abolish Obamacare."
They weren't allowed to. -
“They rolled it out after it was hidden away. When they rolled it out, they said it’s a binary choice, take it or leave it. Normally when you have hearings on a piece of legislation that impacts this much of our overall economy, you would bring in some witnesses and hear from some witnesses about what’s going to happen if this legislation actually becomes law,” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) told MSNBC this morning.
“We had none of that. We went straight to mark-up. No amendments could be offered in the Energy and Commerce Committee, the Ways and Means Committee, the Budget Committee,” he added. “And finally they took a manager’s amendment at the last hour to try to get people to vote for it.”
2. "I think it was really a poison pill. It was set up to do the bidding of the insurance companies not the people. That is Ryan all the way."
Maybe. But the failure did Ryan a great deal of harm. He doesn't seem like the self-sacrificing type to me. You'll recall that he only accepted the Speaker's position with the understanding that he doesn't work weekends.
Ryan is a failure. He had the time to put together a bill to address the complaints of his caucus. Instead he produced this abortion and sold it to President Trump. He was stupid enough to buy it and try to force the Republican holdouts to sign on to it.
Ryan didn't think he was going to fail. He is an arrogant creature of the swamp. He thought with the President putting his weight behind it he could force the Republicans to buy it.
The fact that no amendments were allowed shows you that he thought he had it all figured out.
Trump made a big mistake relying on Ryan. He will be making a big mistake relying on the Republican caucus. He needs to put forth a clean simple two page bill that he can sell to the American people. That can pass with support from both sides of the aisle. A party line vote will not cut it this time.
The same problem is going to happen with tax reform. With infrastructure spending. With the Wall.
He has to build a coalition without Paul Ryan and the party insiders. It is the only way he will get anything done.
Enough circular firing squad. Trump's been in office 2 months. Yes the Republicans in Congress have had years to get a plan together but the party does not march in lockstep (unlike the Dems who still took years to put Ocare together and then only with press complicity and lots o' lying). The GOP has a lot of different plans with different priorities. Also, some Republicans are in bluish states and vulnerable to attack from the free shit for everyone party. Are we going to just throw them overboard? That seems unwise.
Ryan thought he could ram this through with Trump's boosting and it didn't work. That's probably, long term, a good thing. Better to do it right, once, than to fuck it up and have to take credit for it. Now, Obamacare will continue to implode on its own while Trump and the GOP congress figure out the least painful method of repealing it.
AprilApple said...
It's not about Trump hate, Troop. It's about reality.
Trump is the one who pushed Ryan's plan.
If you read what I said, Trump pushed Ryan's plan because that was the one on the table. What you didn't see was that Trump pushed Ryan into the sharp edges of that plan too. Ryan is a dink, Trump takes the lose, but it's still a win, because he can come back sans Ryan and do something without him because now, he doesn't need him. I'm absolutely 10000000000% calling for Ryan's head on this and for him to step down as speaker right now and frankly to resign his seat. He's unworthy, he fucked up huge, he's shown that he is incapable of actually being a legislator or a leader. He could bring his party to the table and he died on that hill. That's the bottom line.
I think President Trump has an opportunity. He does not have to be beholden to the Republicans. He can cut a deal in the middle. He can isolate the Freedom Caucus one side and the ultra-liberals on the other.
He should have Tom Price write up a two page plan and give it to Congressman Poe or some other guy who wants to get this fixed. Pick out a young rising star and let him ramrod it through.
Ryan is a cancer as Meth has said. I wanted him out from the get go. But the Freedom Caucus is just as big a cancer. They only say no. They don't know how to take yes for an answer. Trump was willing to run with the Republicans plan. They presented one. He put his weight behind it. They cut him off at the knees.
Now he has to put in a nationalistic plan that can garner support from both sides. It will not be all government hand out. It will not be all free market.
This is going to be a recurring problem. The Republicans don't want to win. They want to look like a star in Failure Theater.
Lotta bad faith arguments coming out of the GOPe-Ryan-Trump nexus.
“They’d vote no against the Ten Commandments if it came up for a vote.”
oh shut up.
Meth - I disagree. Ryan is injured but he's not out.
I thought this was about our health care, but it seems to be more like "The Real Housewives of New Jersey". Who is stabbing who in the back. Who looks good and who looks bad. I couldn't care less who gets blamed, or who wins the political point of the week. I care about the damned country and the people living in it paying the bills. How the Kabuki play ends doesn't mean shit. The people of Rome were quite entertained with their endless political passion plays as the Goths came down the road. If Trump is just gonna be one of a long line of place holder emperors during the decline, then who needs him. I don't want drama or entertainment anymore I want change, real change. Otherwise, it's not even worth paying attention to.
Bag, then you are choosing a beignin dictatorship over a constitutional republic. You aren't going to get shit done with this crew. Either Trump pulls the trigger and calls congress into session until they work something outin total or he's going to have long knives for him forever.
From my link above.
I'm not doe blaming. Ryan and Trump and Bannon screwed up royal and it's an embarrassment.
The freedom caucus people ARE the individuals with a backbone and a brain.
"Beating up on the Freedom Caucus is a convenient way to excuse Trump for his pitifully poor salesmanship on the bill’s behalf. If you want to lay ultimate blame for failure on Paul Ryan as the main author of the bill, okay, but it was apparent to House Republicans from the beginning that “Their heart was not in the healthcare battle,” referring to the White House. If Trump read the bill or even attempted to master its basic details in order to make an informed case to the public, there’s no evidence of it; his interviews on it were the standard brew of vague Trumpy hyperbole about how “terrific” everything would be after it passed, contrary to all available evidence. "
At one meeting, pressed by members of the Freedom Caucus on key policy points, Trump reportedly replied, “Forget about the little sh*t. Let’s focus on the big picture here.” The “little sh*t,” in this case, was the guts of a bill that would, if enacted, end up remaking one-sixth of the U.S. economy. With Trump only half-interested in the process and seemingly not at all interested in the substance, it fell to Ryan, Tom Price, and Mick Mulvaney, all of whom have a small fraction of Trump’s visibility and an even smaller fraction of the Republican base’s loyalty, to try to sell it, which is why it was so easy for Trumpers to turn against the bill as “RyanCare.” And then, faced with a major setback on Friday, Trump threw in the towel immediately rather than press on as Obama and Pelosi did for months during the ObamaCare process.
all of congress should be sent a copy of this article.
BAM . How to solve our health care in 3 sentences
Meth, I don't care how he does it as long as it's constitutional, but do it. Do something real, not half-assed pretend change. We could have gotten that from any Republican running. The big argument for Trump was his being an agent of change. Well where is it. The calling out of the press was fun, and entertaining, but it's time to get something real done and stop playing celebrity wrestling. Call for big changes, demand that congress delivers it, and move on. Let the enemy bitch in your dust, while you go into the next thing. I hoped he'd be way ahead in the OODA loop, and that's what people imagined he do, but he's getting tied up in it. He's looking in the mirror, when he should be driving. The swamp is draining him.
Bag, fine, a benign dictator held to constitutional standards. I could get behind that, but I'd be really leery. I just don't know why the government can't stay within its constitutionally confined space and let the states and citizens work the rest of the shit out.
Trump is already the agent of a lot of change. He put the pipelines through. He put through a freeze on immigration and refugees from terrorist nations and was blocked by the Courts. He is taking us out the climate change agreements and getting rid of the carbon admission standards that impacts auto manufacturing. He is gutting the EPA and turning back their regulations. He put forth a very conservative Supreme Court nominee. He is struggling to fill up his Cabinet in the face of Democratic delays and Republican fecklessness.
Now I realize that to people who never liked Trump will not recognize any of this. He has to do everything in the first 100 days or he is a failure. That is the metric pushed by the media and what you buy into. Just as you bought into that he could not get the nomination. Just as you bought into that he could not get elected.
Trump is hacking away at problems and having victories and defeats. It is the normal situation for any President. As much as I might tease you I recognize he is not the King. He has to work with Congress. He just tried to work with Congress. He was defeated by his so called allies. So he might have to try something different. I don't know if he can succeed. I do know that he is trying to fulfill his campaign promises.
I think it will take a little more time to see if he can do so.
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