Can I get a Schoolhouse Rock version of this?
Someone get me a guitar and an animator!
Did any of it make sense already or should I start over?
My précis is already wrong. Starting with BCRA first.
I’m sorry I wasted any sympathy on McCain. Now I hope he gets too feeble to return to DC so we only need to get two Republican Senators to break ranks.
McCain’s speech was pathetic. He’s the guy who bursts into shameful tears while he and his friends beat up a hobo.
But, imagine being in a place where we are hoping an increasingly confused 81-year old brain cancer patient is going to “save healthcare.” Fuck you, Trump voters.
But if the House votes on the skinny bill exactly as the Senate passed, then it goes to Trump to get signed, right? Isn’t that fairly likely? I seem to recall that’s what happened to the original ACA?
If it goes to conference, the Senate has to vote on the final bill again, right?
Yes, they could just pass the Senate bill, and yes if it goes to conference they will have to revote in both the House and the Senate, and will have to meet reconciliation rules in the Senate.
Take my next thoughts with a grain of salt, since I’ve been wrong lots recently, though I don’t think any of my predictions about the health care bills has been wrong yet (they’ve been slower than I expected, but they are still getting there).
I don’t think the House will be willing just to pass the Senate skinny bill. It doesn’t really do any of the ideological stuff they put in AHCA or BCRA. It leaves the marketplace subsides in place. It leaves Medicaid expansion in place. It doesn’t cut Medicaid at all. It wouldn’t do anything to penalize Planned Parenthood. And (perhaps most importantly for the GOP), it doesn’t cut taxes for rich people to set up tax reform.
I liked McCain’s speech.
I agree he pitched his reputation in the trash with the Sarah Palin debacle, but I still see glimmers of integrity. He’s got nothing to lose at this point.
He still shows glimmers that he remembers what integrity is, but he always goes on to vote as he’s told.
Even more Byrd problems: Age bands and the small business health plans.
I really hope you’re right. But my guess is that both the Senate and the House Republicans are now on the “we have to pass something that looks like an Obamacare repeal or we’re toast in 2018” mindset, and therefore the House will pass whatever the Senate is able to pass.
If the Senate passes the sham bill and the House takes it up, honestly, that’s pretty much the best thing we could get from anything that passes. I sincerely doubt that’s what they are expecting to do or what the Senate expects.
We can still be hoping that they can’t get anything out of conference that will pass. But the sham bill is better than I would ever have expected. Incredibly damaging to the individual markets, but without the other things that are more irreversible.
.
You are referring to the problems with staying within the limits of a “reconciliation” type bill, yes?
I’m not sure if you’re talking to me or which part, but yes, the Senate has to stay within the rules for reconciliation (or blow up the rules). So anything that comes out of conference would have to be within the Senate reconciliation rules or pass with 60 votes.
It’s just a turd
Yes, it’s only a turd
Being polished by the GOP herd
Sittin’ on the pot day by day
And it’s really pretty shitty
It’s a long, long wait
The GOP sittin’ in committee
Trying to polish a turd some way
We all hope and pray we’ll be heard
Because it’s really still just a turd!
This is effectively a move to start over writing the legislation by amendment on the Senate floor. It’s important to remember that budget reconciliation imposes constraints in order to be able to pass by a simple majority without cloture being an issue.
The Senate parliamentarian already ruled that components of the BCRA violate the Byrd Rule making the bill as currently written subject to filibuster.
Budget reconciliation also requires a CBO score before the Senate can proceed without it being normal legislation with it’s 60 vote to get cloture hurdle. Current amendments to BCRA from Cruz and Portman are not yet scored. While that link only mentions currently existing amendments that’s another big hurdle that slows the whole process. Every amendment would need to be scored first before passage under budget reconciliation is even an option.
Effectively today sets up two cloture votes that Republicans know they are going to lose - full repeal and BCRA. It let’s the Senators who might be at risk in their states show they don’t like ACA by voting against it in two ways. ( “See! See!! We really tried!!! Blame the Democrats not us!!!”) That gives them political theater without substance before they start getting into trying to rewrite via a lengthy (thanks in part to delays to meet parliamentarian review and CBO scoring requirements) amendment process.
I trust them …
To say “fuck you” to all of us.
But of course their retard base will blame the guys who are NOT driving the car - the Dems - for fucking us over (and them too).
This.
And this.
(“Senator John McCain Venn Diagram.” One circle, “Words,” the other, “Actions.” No overlap.)
Along the same lines:
Right, Douchehat. Nobody knows yet what that is.
But John McCain hasn’t been a maverick for 13+ years now, since he endorsed Bush for re-election in June 2004. Since then, he’s been a totally predictable standard-issue Republican, though he talks a good enough game that all those reporters who developed a man-crush on him back in 2000 still have the hots for him.
As Andy Slavitt said, “Wake me when he actually says ‘nay.’”
With all this going on, I wonder if the good states will be able to do their own things (like Mass and Romneycare).
MEBuckner, props!