"Skinny" repeal goes down in flames

[_Xenophon]

As most of you are probably aware, an early morning vote effectively ended the Senate's third attempt at repealing and replacing* the ACA.

There is a lot of intriguing stuff that went on with this, most importantly McCain's "no" vote sealing the deal. This has raised a lot of questions about McConnell's leadership (why did he go to the floor when he didn't have the votes, did he forget to talk to McCain, etc.).

I really enjoyed Perry Bacon Jr. when he was a journalist at Washington Post and I felt his breakdown of what went wrong over at 538 was pretty comprehensive.

All that said, the best part of this whole ordeal was in this delicious little piece of irony:

@realDonaldTrump
So great that John McCain is coming back to vote. Brave - American hero! Thank you John.

And also:

@realDonaldTrump
.@SenJohnMcCain-Thank you for coming to D.C. for such a vital vote. Congrats to all Rep. We can now deliver grt healthcare to all Americans!

[_The CCC]

Faux News is Butt-hurt.
SEE http://www.rawstory.com/2017/07/young-p ... nts=disqus

[_subgenius]

Only an idiot would consider a vote of 49 to 51 as "down in flames"

[_Maksutov]

Only an idiot would consider a vote of 49 to 51 as "down in flames"

Poor little Republicans. All that power and no integrity, competence or clues.

[_The CCC]

Like them or hate them Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi know how to count.

[Guest]

It didn't have 49 votes in support. It had 49 senators willing to vote to move it forward so long as Paul Ryan and the House did not pass it in current form.

It's morbid and perhaps in bad taste to view it this way, but McCain is now the poster child for why there should be term limits. He isn't the only Republican senator who knew the bill was bad and the process being followed could result in disastrous law they didn't support. He just happened to be one of the few who voted accordingly.

Healthcare isn't a subject that can be dealt with in a partisan way. The Affordable Care Act was passed with known flaws that then-President Obama anticipated would be worked out later when he signed it into law. But it was formed in a partisan atmosphere hell-bent on sticking it to Republicans after the Bush years. And partisanship only became more entrenched with time and the worm turned towards Republicans all too quickly who weren't interested in anything but repeal. Few Americans seemed to even know what the ACA did or how it helped them. The political attacks against it generally came down to this: Government is forcing people to do something they might not want to do with their money. Sounds terrible. Easy to say. Wins votes. Repealing the ACA on the surface sounds like the opposite: Stopping government from forcing people to do something they might not want to do with their money. Sounds good. Easy to say. Raises polling numbers.

But behind that simplistic message are other simple messages that freak people out. The people who now have access to affordable health insurance? They won't if the ACA goes away. The CBO sends reports out that shock people when it reminds them the 20+ million people who gained healthcare under the ACA wouldn't have it otherwise. Removing the mandate means costs soar like they were doing before the ACA. Both sound terrible. Easy to say. Really wrecks one's polling numbers.

But both statements are the saying the same thing. And nothing new is being said now compared to during the campaigns. It's just that people hear it differently when it's tied to a proposed bill rather than Obama I guess.

McConnell is absolutely the wrong person to do this, as is almost every House Republican in my opinion, but the Senate and House needs to move away from the two extremes of both parties to find either a ACA repair bill or a repeal-and-replacement bill that can win bipartisan moderate majority support. The only viable solutions are in the middle and that doesn't exist as a majority cohort in either party. Easy to say. Probably bad for polling numbers. But it's also obvious.

[_honorentheos]

“F” numbers. Governance as it is felt comes down to creating and enforcing law. Politics are about numbers and that is damned up the country. We need laws that actually work. And that is almost guaranteed more likely to be found in the middle rather than at the extremes of either party. I'm so tired of partisans.

[_The CCC]

Republican's had at least 7&1/2 years to do something constructive about health care insurance in this country. They chose instead to oppose everything the black man did. Including opposing the very Heritage Foundation idea's that Obama incorporated into his PPACA. Ironically it was another Republican who first proposed universal health care. That other Republican Roosevelt with the first name of Theodore "Teddy".

[_Chap]

Faux News is Butt-hurt.
SEE http://www.rawstory.com/2017/07/young-p ... nts=disqus

Co-host Brian Kilmeade lashed out at the younger supporters celebrating with Warren and showed a fundamental misunderstanding of how health insurance works.

“I laugh, too, that these young people are out there celebrating,” Kilmeade said. “Congratulations, you now will pay a fine or you have to have insurance. Congratulations, the healthy people are paying for the sick people.”

My bolding. That is, um, the whole principle behind insurance of any kind.

To give ourselves a hedge against unforeseen disasters, we all pay into a pool and share the risk. Then if a disaster (in this case getting ill) strikes you, you get help from the pool. If disaster has spared you up to the present moment, the sight of help being given to those who have not been spared reassures you that if you do hit trouble, you will be OK.

Great idea, no?

[_Xenophon]

Honor there is definitely a lot I can agree with in your post. I think you're dead on in pointing to the ineptitude of current leadership and that they probably can't create a viable solution without a major shake up first.

And although it is no where near perfect, it is also true that a large portion of the population doesn't understand how the ACA benefited them or the law in general. One of my favorite ways to highlight that is to show any poll that breaks down the individual components of the law and show how many of them have bi-partisan support. The separation really only comes in how we pay for all those nice things.



All that said, I think it is a bit unfair to paint the creation of the ACA as a partisan affair or if it was, it wasn't entirely Obama's doing. Yes, Obama and the Dems were planning on pushing through healthcare reform. But they spent a considerable amount of energy inviting Republicans to the table. Obama met personally with the minority leadership and Senators negotiated back and forth nearly all summer.

But, remember how Republicans vowed to make this Obama's "Waterloo"(DeMint on that one, I believe)? Or when McConnell admitted they would do everything they could to defeat it? The only counter-proposal Republicans offered was scored poorly by the CBO and it solved none of the issues at hand; namely it would have increased the number of uninsured and raised premiums for the least healthy. They even gave them Tort reform to try to get them to the table and If I recall correctly the individual mandate was actually from the Heritage Foundation, you think they could get behind that.

I'm not saying it was done perfectly leading up to ACA. Comparing then to now that show just how partisan it could have been. I mean, this time around there were whole swaths of Republicans that weren't allowed to offer input, let alone the other side of the aisle.