You go to war against Obamacare with the President you have, Part 2
We don’t have a conservative president, but we do have a president open to doing conservative things.
I don’t think there is just one conclusion to be reached from the failure of the House Republicans to pass the health care bill advocated by Paul Ryan, and supported by President Trump.
Marc Thiessen blames the Freedom Caucus, The Freedom Caucus blows its chance to govern
For weeks, as President Trump courted the group, members of the caucus used their leverage to make the bill better. They asked for language capping the maximum income to receive the tax credit — and got it. They asked to allow states to choose between a traditional block grant and a per capita block grant — and got it. They asked to allow states to impose work requirements on able-bodied Medicaid recipients — and got it. They asked for language preventing non-Medicaid-expansion states from becoming expansion states — and got it. They asked for flexibility for states to change “essential health benefits” — and got it.
But each time they got a concession, and were asked to support the bill, they instead came up with new sets of demands that made the legislation increasingly unpassable. Eventually it became clear to Trump that the Freedom Caucus would never take yes for an answer. So he cut them off ….
Freedom Caucus members had a chance to repeal the individual mandate and the employer mandate, transform Medicaid, end $1 trillion in Obamacare taxes, expand health savings accounts and defund Planned Parenthood. Instead, they chose to keep Obamacare intact.
There is an equally good argument that blaming the Freedom Caucus is blaming the messenger – it was a bad bill that continued Obamacare’s institutionalization of federal government micromanagement of health care.
That micromanagement, with the presumption that it is the federal government’s duty to provide expansive health insurance to everyone, is one of the prime problems of Obamacare. Central planning didn’t work in the Soviet Union, and it won’t work and hasn’t worked in the U.S. healthcare system for similar reasons.
The answer to Obamacare is not more Obamacare.
I’m not going to get hung up on Round 1 in the Obamacare repeal and replace war. While Trump says he’s moving on, I think that’s some bluster. Ryan says he’s still working on a revision. But when Ryan brings another plan to Trump, it better be with enough Republican votes to pass it.
There is a bigger issue here. It’s the risk for conservatives in undermining Trump when conservatives can get most of what they want. That will be a continuing issue beyond health care, on a long list of issues from immigration to deregulation to tax reform to judicial nominations.
I get back to a point I made on March 8, as the Republican House health care bill was first being debated. The main problem was not that the bill was not conservative enough, though that may have been true.
The main problem was that the conservative candidate in the Republican primary, Ted Cruz, didn’t win, and the winner wasn’t an ideological conservative, You go to war against Obamacare with the President you have:
I would have liked to see a truly conservative alternative. But in order to do that we should have elected a truly conservative president.
That’s not a knock on Trump — he is what he is, and as pointed out during the primaries he never has been an ideological conservative. There are many things he believes and already has done that are conservative, but it’s not his nature. He’s always believed in big government, but big government that seeks to make America great again, not big government that seeks to make America weak again.
Ideological conservatives had their chance in the primaries. They lost. We lost. I supported Ted Cruz, but he couldn’t pull it off.
We don’t have a conservative president, but we do have a president open to doing conservative things.
Keeping that president doing conservative things as much as possible should be the goal. Insisting that Trump do only conservative things is not going to work, because conservatives didn’t elect Trump.
Trump’s going to do some non-conservative things, but he’s the only opportunity we currently have or are likely to have in the near future to promote conservatism.
We shouldn’t waste it by insisting on all or nothing.
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Comments
You don’t attack the most ardent, active and determined members of your base for your mistakes but that is what Trump did after he allowed Ryan and the rest of the GOPe to present a very bad bill to replace another very bad bill. ALL of the points discussed above should have been addressed BEFORE the bill was introduced not as part of the closing process where once again conservatives get assaulted by the establishment.
Trump, in his “State of the Union” address before Congress laid out his list of five points that must be satisfied in replacing ObamaCare. RyanCare failed on each and every one. The GOP had 7 years to come up with a replacement and that is the best they could do? And why the cram down again? We MUST vote for part one to find out what parts two and three contain? Who signs ANY contract blindly? What ever happened to “read the fine print”?
In trying to cram a very bad bill down our throats, the Freedom Caucus was again excluded from participating in the “negotiation” of a bill whose terms were kept secret except from the insurance companies who wrote it (again). Then, when Ryan refused to negotiate with the Freedom Caucus, Trump had to step in and act as Speaker. With every Freedom Caucus vote Trump secured, Ryan allowed “moderate” (aka RINO) votes to flip to assure that the “blame conservatives for failure” narrative remained intact. When the bill failed (thank God), Trump eventually blamed conservatives. Meet the new boss?
This was a bill supported by only 17% of voters. I was as strong a supporter of Trump as anyone and am still prepared to keep an open mind about his strategy. But this was a colossal failure that suggested that Trump is just as tone-deaf as his predecessors, akin to Never Trumper Mark Levin calling conservatives who supported Trump instead of Ted Cruz “a-holes and morons”.
Trump may be the only president we have to war against ObamaCare but maybe he is only interested in making a deal, ANY deal, rather fixing problems. As it is, the longer he takes to assuage those of us who feel betrayed right out of the gate, the more likely he will be a one-term president.
Replacing whack-job liberalism with whack-job RINOism is not what we elected to “win” with. The problem with getting kicked in the nuts by his predecessors wasn’t that we cared about who was doing the kicking. There is no special “cache” for having been kicked in the nuts by Trump. He better fix that problem soon.
Replacing whack-job liberalism with whack-job RINOism is exactly what we elected to “win” with. The only justification being offered for it was #NeverHillary and it was the best we could get. True enough, but less than satisfying. The fight goes on…
I do not consider it “all or nothing” for the Congress to put on the President’s desk the IDENTICAL BILL they put on Obama’s not long ago – FULL REPEAL. This is what was promised, repeal.
What Ryan and his RINO herd did was NOT in any way a repeal.
It was a bad bill, and it deserved to DIE. That is not the end, however, but an opportunity to DO IT RIGHT, this time.
I just hope all this press idiocy won’t make Ryan go MORE left.
Exactly. It took Obama 8 months to pass his bill. Why does this have to be done in a bum’s rush? And why is Trump trashing the only Republicans who are radical enough to insist on fighting for the OFFICIAL GOP platform? David Brat defeated the entrenched House Majority Leader being outspent $2.5m to $30,000 by merely running on the “radical” official GOP platform.
Conservatives are not the problem. We are the reason the GOP control EVERYTHING today. They don’t need to “reach across the aisle” to find votes. Just force everyone to toe the line on the GOP platform, the one they ran on.
They can’t do that–they are afraid he would sign it!
Well ya know…
It’s kind’a like this.
Trump said he was gonna repeal Obamacare.
That is what I am looking for.
I know the Republicans can see the money and power…
And they are just fine with Obamacare, so long as they get to be the ones handling the till. It appears now they are just jealous they weren’t the ones that had the nards to institute it.
That isn’t what I was up for.
So.. looking at the options, I think it better to just enjoy the warmth given off by Obamacare going down in flames, rather than trust ” Representatives ” ( And at this point, I don’t trust them as far as I could throw them )
So, Obamacare crashes, I’m not having a problem with that.
I am having a problem with the ” Representatives ” that are going to try to fix it.
Where does it say we even have to fix something that is broken?
Can’t we just pitch it into the garbage, and forget it?
Sometimes the swamp drains you….
For a while. Like most battles, this is fluid.
We’ll prevail – after we get rid of Ryan and McConnell.
There’s no reason to continue calling ACA Obamacare. Since they didn’t repeal it Trump owns it. He should be mad at himself and Ryan but instead blames conservatives who are the reason their party should exist. Perhaps they should have all run as democrats instead.
I think HillaryCare better fits your purpose.
She owns it.
And The Democrats who voted for it own it.
Baby steps. If conservatives are right, then there are trillions of dollars at stake, and truly affordable health care. The most of any special and peculiar interest, including the mysticism of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming, and the democratic leverage of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Immigration Reform. Not the least of which, closing the abortion chambers poses an existential risk to proponents of selective-child, clinical cannibalism, [class] diversity (i.e. institutional racism, sexism), and others adventures in social justice and minority profiteering.
Our entrenched political class promising freedom and liberty by baby steps is as equally packaged in mysticism as is the mysticism of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming, and the democratic leverage of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Immigration Reform.
That said; Trump did not run as a Conservative on Obamacare-he has no idea what is in the US Constitution. Rather Trump campaigned as a businessman offering repeal and replace with market-driven principles. Trump should be furious with Paul Ryan’s failure and not with Conservatives.
And if Trump cannot not bring leadership to the health insurance/healthcare table then what good will be his job creation plan when a third of the economy continues to be oppressed by government control of both health insurance and healthcare. This bad business policy would be like building electric cars while shutting down coal plant
There is an answer to the trillion dollar question
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-03-01/dear-president-trump-if-you-want-cut-healthcare-costs-stem-opiate-death-spiral-legal
The President should have been smart enough to stay out of this mess to begin with. This bill started out as a c**p sandwich and it didn’t get much better as it went on. The Speaker took his “secret” bill and tried to ram it through, a la the Dems with Obamacare. When more and more people pointed out the fact that this bill was atrocious, along comes the phoney 3 phase excuse for passage. We are told that this bill is pretty bad, but it is only the first step and that it must be passed in order to move on to the second step. The people selling this bill totally ignored the fact that phase 2, deregulation by the HHS Secretary, can take place without any other legislation. Then we are told that there is no way to repeal Obamacare without a super majority in the Senate. For the sake of discussion, we will assume that this is correct. So, exactly how do the people selling this bill to the American public plan on generating such a super majority? It is unlikely that any Dems will sign on to kill Obamacare. So a Republican super majority will have to be elected in 2018. The odds on that happening are about the same as the sun going nova in the same length of time. And, t top it all off, nothing in this bill would have affected the biggest complaint of consumers, insurance premium costs and deductibles. It would, however, have given a tax break to wealthy investors and repealed the employer insurance mandate. I can under stand how these two provisions would have appealed to a job creator such as the President. But nothing in this bill would have diminished the current effects of the ACA.
Now, I have no idea why the HFC killed this bill. But, I thank them for doing so. If this bill had passed, it would have been hung up for months in the Senate. Then, the Senate;s version would have to go to reconciliation, probably taking another few months. Now we are at, or approaching, the 2018 midterm elections. We know that nothing is likely to happen with this bill until after those elections. Especially if less than 25% of the electorate approve of it. But, even if is passed before the elections, it is likely to be as weak as the original. So, what is the result of this scenario? We sit around waiting for a bill to pass which will do little or nothing to mitigate the negative aspects of Obamacare. We will have to depend upon the HHS Secretary to deregulate. But, the President will be in the middle of tax reform, wall funding, immigration enforcement, preparing a budget and foreign relations.
The Dems and the media, and many members of Congress really want to force the President into addressing Obamacare. The reason for that is because they know that there is no way to fix Obamacare without a sizable number of people losing their health insurance, unless a government funded, single payer heath care insurance system is put into place. That is the inconvenient truth in all of this. So, Trump is vulnerable if he takes action on Obamacare or if he doesn’t. Passing the Ryancare bill would have gotten a lot of people off his back until the midterms. And, if the three phase “plan” was followed, no one would expect the administration to do much of anything until the bill was enacted.
Now, people are going to want something done. And the politicians are terrified of doing anything to affect Obamacare for fear that either no relief will be seen or, worse, people will lose their insurance. So, they are “blaming” the HFC for stopping the “fix” of Obamacare.
The President should have been smart enough to stay out of this mess to begin with.
Basically, he did. This is Ryan’s crap sandwich, not Trump’s.
The Democrats want to keep Obamacare. But so do the Republicans. They made noises about eliminating it back when there was no chance that they’d succeed. But now that they can actually do it, they won’t. They can’t say that, of course. So they offer a crap bill which doesn’t really do the job, but nibbles a bit at the edges.
So, Trump tells Congress it had better vote for the Ryan Crap Sandwich Bill. Why? Not because he thinks it’s a good bill, but because he knows that’s all they’re going to get, as long as Ryan is steering the ship. Trump can’t get rid of Ryan; only Congress can do that. For that matter, he can’t get rid of Obamacare on his own—it was an act of Congress, and it will take another act of Congress to eliminate it.
Well, phooey. Somehow or other, Trump has to be to blame. Ask the Democrats, the press, the Republicans (not in front of witnesses, of course), this blog—they’ll all tell you so.
So, what was the election about? Trump said he’d build The Wall, cut down the torrential onslaught of hostile Muslims, reverse Obama’s defense policy of surrender on all fronts, and fight the systematic destruction of American industry. These are all things which the Presidency either dominates or controls outright. Obamacare, though, he can’t do on his own. And if Congress won’t do it because both parties want to keep it, it seems tendentious to insist that it’s all Trump’s fault. Maybe if he was a sneaky shit like Obama, he’d be able to do some creative backstabbing of the more obstructive Congresscritters … but I don’t think he will. Congress is going to have to clean up its own act. And that won’t happen. Trump will just have to do the things a President can do, not the ones we may wish he could.
Sorry, but as soon as trump supported this legislation, it became Trumpcare, not Ryancare. Simply listen to the media. The mantra is that Trump failed to advance his agenda. If the bill had passed ito law, the failure of this bill to do anything would be the failure of Trumpcare, not Ryancare.
The problem with Obamacare is that without it, people will lose their healthcare insurance, at least in the short haul. And, when that happens, whoever has a hand in changing Obamacare will be blamed for that. Trump would have been smart to say that the bill was a stinker and simply ignored it. Saying that Obamacare would be dealt with when there was a comprehensive means to do so. If Congress wants to pass a bill, then Trump can address it when it hits his desk. Now, since he supported it and lobbied for it, he owns part of the responsibility for the contents of the bill and for its failure to pass.
Not a smart move on the President’s part.
I agree with this Congressman, Jim Jordan, and with Senator Mike Lee.
http://therightscoop.com/jim-jordan-the-freedom-caucus-just-did-the-american-people-a-favor/
https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2017/03/sen-mike-lee-puts-the-establishments-rinocare-lies-on-full-display
It was a HORRIBLE bill.
You go to to war with the President you have….with a bill you KNOW has the majority GOP members’ full support!
Ryan lied about the what the bill would do, about the Senate rules, about how he was going to work it out.
Liar. Pants. On. Fire.
There you have it. No need to beat around the bush.
Just repeal the thing.
In my opinion, that is exactly what the people voted for back in November.
Hell Yes! That is precisely what a huge number of us here in Flyover Nation really wanted for our votes, and what we were lead to expect. So … Do It Already!!
The bill did not kill the mandate. It did not get rid of the minimum coverage (i.e. Pregnancy coverage for the elderly). Predicting the future –what the senate parliamentarian would say without asking doomed this pathetic bill.
The bill also only defunded Planned parenthood for 1 year…1 year!!???? WTH kind of repeal or defund is that?? They lied to us.
We voted for them since 2010 to get this repealed like they promised…They will not get another vote out of me until they do what they promised
Amen
I’m sorry, Professor, but the entire premise of this article is wrong. The Freedom Caucus did NOT get almost everything they wanted. In fact, they got NOTHING they wanted. The media (even here) never reported it, but what they wanted was spelled out clearly in Three Criteria for Health Reform:
The RINOcare bill would have raised insurance premiums and done nothing to solve the underlying factors continuing to raise the cost of medical care. In my book, the Freedom Caucus are heroes for stopping this cynical charade.
What happened? Obamacare opponents have the House and Senate. And you lost. Schlump said he was going to repeal Obamacare. He conceded instead.
Where’s all of your chest puffing talk now,professor?
Purists Kill Whatever They Believe In
https://townhall.com/columnists/dennisprager/2017/03/28/purists-kill-whatever-they-believe-in-n2305024?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=
According to The New York Times, 10 moderates, 15 conservatives, and eight other Republicans would have voted against the Republican repeal and replace Obamacare bill. So, then, 15 or so conservatives made it impossible to pass the bill favored by nearly every other Republican and by President Donald Trump. If that is the case, what we have here is another conservative example of purism and principle damaging another major opportunity to do good.
The first purist conservative example were the Never-Trumpers, who believed it was better for Hillary Clinton to be elected president and for the Left to have four more years of presidential power than for Donald Trump to win.
I hate to ruin your goofy analysis but I think it should be pointed out that it was the Tea Party/Freedom Caucus who embrace the OFFICIAL Republican Party platform and are now the ONLY ONES FIGHTING FOR IT!
Trump wasn’t elected to chum up with the GOPe that runs on the GOP platform but then rallies to the Dem platform once elected and then blame the conservatives who again (like you are doing), are the ONLY ONES FIGHTING FOR THE GOP PLATFORM, when they fail.
Does that help you understand the problem? Do you understand what last year’s election was about? Hello? Anybody home?
Phil,
I hate to ruin your goofy response, but it clearly is NOT my analysis. It IS a link to an article that pertains to prof’s OP, with a quote from the article.
Reading comprehension, Phil, reading comprehension. Read and understand before you project.
And, for the record, I am home and my comprehension of the problem far exceeds yours.
TTFN
“According to The New York Times, 10 moderates, 15 conservatives, and eight other Republicans would have voted against the Republican repeal and replace Obamacare bill. So, then, 15 or so conservatives made it impossible to pass the bill favored by nearly every other Republican and by President Donald Trump.”
Except….
1. According to the New York Times…
2. CONSERVATIVES were voting according to their pledge…
3. Der Donald FAVORED a reversal of his own pledge…
4. and you are, as always, a lying sack of shit.
rags,
always good to hear from you.
I’de like to respond to your argument, but there isn’t one to respond to.
While I have you here:
Have you come up with any reasons why Hillary would have been the better choice? That’s the gist of your posts here, but you never seem to be able to explain why.
TTFN
VAPigman,
You commit the twin sins of lying and doing it tritely.
It suggests you are both without integrity AND a working brain.
I’ve never compared the one with the other.
dear rags,
you commit the twin sins of being an asshole and doing it well.
You compare one with the other every time you say I told you so. The election, despite the lies you told us at the time, was binary. It was him or her. History proves it. You say it shouldn’t have been him. That’s a comparison.
The fact that you don’t admit / see it suggests you are both without integrity AND a working brain.
“You compare one with the other every time you say I told you so.”
The persistence of your lies is fascinating.
My position on the election was so well known it’s simply amazing you keep lying about it. Still, you persist. (Heh!)
As to your lie I quote above, you might want to look up Marcus Aurelius.
I don’t need to compare you with anyone to point out your apparent and disgusting flip-flop on T-rumpCare.
dear rags,
Your position on the election was to bravely vote ‘PRESENT’ while adults went to the polls and made choices. Your mantra that you wouldn’t vote for either doesn’t excuse you, it condemns you. On Nov 8 there were only 2 real choices – him or her. Choosing neither was not a sign of political wisdom, since one of them would be elected. You hate him so much that you would rather have her. And now your behavior is that of the psycho who doesn’t get the promotion. Instead of working with the now boss, he tries to destroy him, not caring if he takes the whole company down with him. Because all that matters to him is his anger and pain. It’s all about you – selfish little you.
Dear VAPigman,
I wouldn’t join your lil’ cult.
Suck it, Collectivist.
I will remain a free man, thanks!
AND I will revel in knowing that drives you batshit crazy!
Heh…!!!
Last time I checked 10 + 8 is more than 15.
Trump should simply abandon the GOP and start a new party.
The GOP, baseless, will disappear, along with the rino scum infesting it.
Prof,
good analysis.
One part that caught my attention:
But each time they got a concession, and were asked to support the bill, they instead came up with new sets of demands that made the legislation increasingly unpassable. Eventually it became clear to Trump that the Freedom Caucus would never take yes for an answer.
That sounds like how the Palestinians negotiate with the Israelis. Ask, ask, ask and walk away.
If Trump does move to the left to get the coalition that will let him govern, the far right will have no one to blame but themselves.
“The far right” just wanted what all of us have been promised.
What even YOU said you wanted. Oddly, that seems to have changed.
It seems your Collectivist stripe is coming out in unison with your Great God Cheeto’s.
All he had to do was what he’d promised.
And as I’ve predicted, his core came to the forefront.
dear rags,
your reply has nothing whatever to do with my post, which is about the consequences of negotiating in bad faith.
I know it’s hard, but please try to keep up.
Naturally, you lie.
Of course I directly refuted your stupid, false premise.
We go back to that “no integrity, no working brain” issue with you.
All this reality must be really rough on you.
dear rags,
You refuted nothing.
what they wanted is immaterial.
what you wanted is immaterial.
what I wanted is immaterial.
if they, you, I or Trump are collectivists, that too is immaterial.
they entered into negotiations. they demanded and received concessions, and then failed to deliver. that’s bad faith negotiation. if they didn’t want to compromise, they should have said so at the outset. once you demand concessions, receive them and agree to them, you are expected to perform in good faith. as an attorney you know this. The fact that you don’t admit / see it suggests you are both without integrity AND a working brain.
Dear VAPigman,
Your Great God Cheeto made a contract with people whose vote he was seeking.
All he had to do was perform.
He was lying, according to reality.
Your kinda guy.
What Trump did or said during the campaign is immaterial to the negotiations with the Caucus. If they didn’t trust him, they should have refused to talk.
Your argument that 2 wrongs make a right (his lie excuses theirs) suggests you are both without integrity AND a working brain.
You’ll tell any lie to support your Great God Cheeto.
Everything is immaterial in your world if it shows your cult leader in a bad light.
You accept as gospel the report from the WaPo regarding these negotiations. This bill was a stinking betrayal, and you either know it or you are Collectivist puke I’ve always suspected.
Conversely, I have T-rump in his own words, and his own acts…not relying on reportage from ONE source.
So, I never make the argument you lie about. This is typical of you. No integrity and NO working brain, though you arrogate to yourself a strange superiority.
VaGentleman –
When you argue with a nut, you have 2 nuts arguing.
TheFineReport,
normally I would agree with you, but…
He challenged me to do it, and I accepted. What started out as nuisance has actually turned into a learning experience. I live in an area that is 10 to 1 liberal. Dealing with rags is much like dealing with a the libs in the area and it helps sharpen my skills. I labor under no delusions that I can educate or convert him, but I can expose him. He is the embodiment of the personality type Eric Hoffer so brilliantly described in ‘The True Believer’. And some interesting things have come out of it. Recently he admitted that it a religious crusade for him – religion and politics subsumed. That was almost a given, considering the way he argues his case. What was a surprise to me was that Fuzzy Slippers defended his position and went so far as accusing me of not passing her religious litmus test – that I didn’t see coming. Neither sees that behavior is right out of the ISIS / Taliban playbook of merging politics and religion. It’s also right out of Hoffer’s description of the personality type. That’s the type of stuff I learn from my little chats with him.
Then there’s the fact that I’m often up early waiting for business contacts in GMT +0,-1 to wake and come online so I can Skype them. It’s something to do while I coffee up.
“Recently he admitted that it a religious crusade for him – religion and politics subsumed.”
In addition to being fundamentally without integrity, you’re also delusional.
Typical T-rump sucking cultist.