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Senate sounds ready to gut new House health-care bill — if it passes the House at all
Hotair ^ | 04/27/2017 | AllahPundit

Posted on 04/27/2017 8:48:35 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

Doesn’t really matter. This is a game of hot potato at this point. The Freedom Caucus took the blame, fairly or not, for tanking the original House health-care bill last month. Now they’ve hatched an amendment that makes the bill more palatable to conservatives, letting states waive the federal mandates for Essential Health Benefits and community rating subject to certain conditions, but which does little to make it more appealing to Republican moderates. The stuff that would make it more palatable to them, like rolling back planned cuts to Medicaid, isn’t in the new version and would only spook House conservatives all over again if it were. In fact, if anything, because it gives states the power to let insurers charge people with preexisting conditions higher premiums under some circumstances, the new bill is arguably a heavier lift for moderates than the original bill was. (And possibly will prove even less appealing to voters.) But from the conservative point of view, that’s okay. The Freedom Caucus amendment achieves its core goal of flipping the hot potato from the right over to the moderates, who’ll now take the blame among Trump’s base if they vote no and the bill fails and will take the blame from everyone else if they vote yes and it passes.

If they end up signing off, it’ll only toss the hot potato to a third player — the Senate. And guess what? They’re already preparing to toss it right back:

“The Freedom Caucus has done a good job of trying to make the bill less bad,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), one of the lead Senate agitators against the House health care push, said Wednesday. “For me, it’s a big stumbling block still that there’s taxpayer money that’s being given to insurance companies, and I am just not in favor of taxpayer money going to insurance companies.”

Phil Novack, a spokesman for Sen. Ted Cruz , also indicated that the conservative Texas firebrand isn’t sold, saying “significant work remains” in the Senate, “specifically to address Obamacare’s insurance mandates and enact major patient-centered reforms that will further reduce the cost of health care.”…

“Once they pass a bill, my assumption is, the Senate’s going to take a look at it but not necessarily be rubber-stamping what they’re proposing,” Cornyn said. “So I would anticipate that we’ll do what we used to do all the time which is, the House will pass a bill, we’ll pass a bill and then we’ll reconcile those in a conference committee.”

WaPo asked voters about the outline of the Freedom Caucus plan in its most recent poll. How do Americans feel about giving states more power to waive core ObamaCare provisions? Not so great:

That’s not a fair statement of the Freedom Caucus plan, which would require states to show some offsetting benefit (e.g., lower premiums) from a waiver in order to qualify for one and which would mandate coverage alternatives, like high-risk pools, for people with preexisting conditions. But the Democratic messaging machine isn’t going to fairly state the Freedom Caucus plan in 2018 ads either; the way WaPo phrased this is how it’ll be phrased in attacks in the purple districts inhabited by centrist Republicans. In which case, if you’re a moderate, what do you do? Bite the bullet and cast a hard yes vote knowing that it’s likely to go for naught in the Senate anyway, or vote no and risk Trump firing off pissy tweets about RINO traitors until the Republicans in your district are ready to stay home in the midterms? That potato’s getting hotter by the second.

There’s a chance the House could vote tomorrow, if Ryan thinks he has the votes, of course. Does he? The Hill’s tracking more than 80 key Republicans who will decide the bill’s fate. Just seven have committed to voting yes; more than 60 are undecided and 12 are already no’s, a bad sign given that Ryan can only afford to lose 22 GOP votes. Charlie Dent, one of the moderates, said yesterday that he thinks most centrist Republicans who were opposed before will stay opposed now, and if that’s true, it’s doom for Ryan. Although the Freedom Caucus got all the hype in March, there were oodles of centrists who were quietly prepared to vote no on AHCA v1.0. In fact, notes Harry Enten, of the 49 House Republicans who made disapproving noises about the original bill, the majority were moderates, not conservatives:

Instead, the AHCA would probably need somewhere in the neighborhood of five to 15 moderate Republicans who opposed the AHCA the first time around to jump on board (depending how many previously opposed conservative members do).

That could happen, but as moderate GOP Rep. Charlie Dent has pointed out, the new amendment could also lead to additional centrist Republicans coming out against the bill. There’s a group of House Republicans, about 303, who never signaled either way where they stood on the AHCA when it first came up. Perhaps they were hoping that they wouldn’t have to take a public stand — support a very unpopular or break with their party. Now, they may have to show their cards. And of the 30 members of this group for whom we have an ideological score, 16 were more moderate than the average House Republican. Even if AHCA backers are able to get most of this group, every defection makes it that much less likely the bill will pass the House.

This same moderate/conservative impasse will play out again in the Senate if and when the hot potato makes it into Mitch McConnell’s hands. Enten calculates that 29 Republican senators, more than half the caucus, are more moderate on balance than the average House Republican, and yet those senators are now on the verge of being handed a bill that’s more conservative than the first unpopular iteration was. No telling yet where the potato will ultimately land, but we can probably safely rule out Trump’s desk.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: congress; freedomcaucus; healthcare; obamacare; senate; senatetrumpcare; trumpcare
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1 posted on 04/27/2017 8:48:35 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

First thing they need to do is GET RID of Paul Ryan as speaker of the house


2 posted on 04/27/2017 8:52:16 AM PDT by blueyon (The U. S. Constitution - read it and weep)
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To: SeekAndFind

There’s a group of House Republicans, about 303, who never signaled either way where they stood on the AHCA when it first came up
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There are not 303 Republicans in the House.


3 posted on 04/27/2017 8:52:22 AM PDT by Lurkinanloomin (Natural Born Citizen Means Born Here Of Citizen Parents - Know Islam, No Peace -No Islam, Know Peace)
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To: blueyon

Until there is a whole lot of Cantorizing, any new Speaker will be another RINO just like Ryan.


4 posted on 04/27/2017 8:53:41 AM PDT by Lurkinanloomin (Natural Born Citizen Means Born Here Of Citizen Parents - Know Islam, No Peace -No Islam, Know Peace)
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To: SeekAndFind

This bill won’t even get a vote in the House, because it has no chance to pass. This is kabuki. It already violates reconciliation rules, so it’s a dead letter even to bother with it.

This ENTIRE exercise has been to take the onus of blame off of the Freedom Caucus for killing AHCA, and put the blame on the moderates.

Unfortunately the reality is that it was the Freedom Caucus the killed the largest entitlement cut in history and 900 billion dollar tax cut. I for one am not going to forget that.


5 posted on 04/27/2017 8:54:18 AM PDT by babble-on
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To: SeekAndFind
So when the Senate GOP makes its changes, the House won't be on board with it and it won't get passed.

At least it's not on Trump. But that won't stop "NeverTrumper-Trump Supporters" from blaming him, even though he has nothing to do with what Congress does.

6 posted on 04/27/2017 8:54:33 AM PDT by ConservativeMind ("Humane" = "Don't pen up pets or eat meat, but allow infanticides, abortion, and euthanasia.")
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To: SeekAndFind

Has anyone yet discovered where the words “medicine” or “health care” or “insurance” appear in the Constitution?


7 posted on 04/27/2017 8:54:39 AM PDT by Arthur McGowan (https://youtu.be/IYUYya6bPGw)
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To: blueyon

RE: First thing they need to do is GET RID of Paul Ryan as speaker of the house

Since this also involves the senate, they have to include Mitch McConnell as well.


8 posted on 04/27/2017 8:55:30 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: Lurkinanloomin

And AFTER a lot of Cantorizing, the new speaker will be Nancy Pelosi.


9 posted on 04/27/2017 8:55:35 AM PDT by babble-on
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To: Lurkinanloomin

There is no repeal on the table.
It is rearranging and repair, it’s still Obamacare.
Kabuki theatre.


10 posted on 04/27/2017 8:55:46 AM PDT by Lurkinanloomin (Natural Born Citizen Means Born Here Of Citizen Parents - Know Islam, No Peace -No Islam, Know Peace)
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To: Arthur McGowan
Has anyone yet discovered where the words “medicine” or “health care” or “insurance” appear in the Constitution?

They emanate from some penumbra somewhere, sez the judges.
11 posted on 04/27/2017 8:56:47 AM PDT by LostInBayport (When there are more people riding in the cart than there are pulling it, the cart stops moving...)
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To: babble-on

The Senate wasn’t going to pass AHCA the first time, even if the Freedom Caucus had passed it in the House.


12 posted on 04/27/2017 8:57:08 AM PDT by Lurkinanloomin (Natural Born Citizen Means Born Here Of Citizen Parents - Know Islam, No Peace -No Islam, Know Peace)
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To: SeekAndFind

The reality is that *NOTHING* is going to pass that doesn’t allow for coverage of pre existing conditions. Too many people have their lives on the line to give a fig about the economics, greater impact or ideological purity of *ANYTHING* that doesn’t mandate/provide coverage for people who would be excluded due to pre existing conditions. I’ve a number of friends, co workers and general acquaintances who, due to job loss or such would not be covered and couldn’t afford to buy coverage with their conditions (some of which are their fault, some not).

I get the ideological, patriotic and economic arguments, but they simply don’t matter in the slightest if you’ve got cancer or a heart condition, always had coverage with your employer and then got laid off or otherwise found yourself without insurance. Survival trumps everything. Acknowledging that reality would lead to something that might pass.


13 posted on 04/27/2017 8:58:30 AM PDT by RedStateRocker (Nuke Mecca, deport all illegal aliens, abolish the IRS, DEA and ATF.)
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To: babble-on

Hard to see how that is different from Ryan.


14 posted on 04/27/2017 8:59:00 AM PDT by Lurkinanloomin (Natural Born Citizen Means Born Here Of Citizen Parents - Know Islam, No Peace -No Islam, Know Peace)
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To: Lurkinanloomin

Trump’s agenda “stumbled” because of Mark Meadows. Nancy Pelosi would like you to thank him for her next time you see him.


15 posted on 04/27/2017 8:59:17 AM PDT by babble-on
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To: babble-on

babble on


16 posted on 04/27/2017 9:00:21 AM PDT by Lurkinanloomin (Natural Born Citizen Means Born Here Of Citizen Parents - Know Islam, No Peace -No Islam, Know Peace)
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To: SeekAndFind
With all the back-and-forth, I'm a bit confused as to what Trump's plan currently consists of.

To me, a good basic plan would be:
1) Every American should be able to have an HSA.
2) The government issues vouchers to citizens and lets them buy their own coverage.
3) Set up a high risk pool (like in auto insurance) for people with pre-existing conditions, and each insurance company has to insure a certain percentage of people from the pool if they want to accept government vouchers.

This doesn't have to be difficult.

17 posted on 04/27/2017 9:00:24 AM PDT by chud
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To: Lurkinanloomin

Did Pelosi put forward a 1.3 trillion dollar entitlement cut? No, she sided with Mark Meadows in opposing it.


18 posted on 04/27/2017 9:01:51 AM PDT by babble-on
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To: babble-on

It would not have passed the Senate.
Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.


19 posted on 04/27/2017 9:04:22 AM PDT by Lurkinanloomin (Natural Born Citizen Means Born Here Of Citizen Parents - Know Islam, No Peace -No Islam, Know Peace)
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To: chud

1) Every American should be able to have an HSA.

YEP, THAT IS IN THE PLAN. THE INTENT IS TO DECOUPLE YOUR HEALTH INSURANCE FROM YOUR EMPLOYMENT.

2) The government issues vouchers to citizens and lets them buy their own coverage.

I KNOW THAT THIS IS THE PLAN FOR VETERANS. NOT SURE IF IT IS IN THIS HOUSE PLAN.

3) Set up a high risk pool (like in auto insurance) for people with pre-existing conditions,

THEY HOUSE PLAN LEAVES THIS UP TO THE STATES TO DO.


20 posted on 04/27/2017 9:05:47 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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