Yep. It sounds like this one may really happen - but I thought the same thing about the last one and it didn’t. In this case, I figure the thing to see is if they actually set it for a vote. McConnell ended up looking like an asshole last time when McCain torpedoed it, and I don’t think he’ll have another vote that might fail. If he sets it, he’ll have the votes in advance, so they’ll be theoretically able to pass a bill which was just released without going through any sort of real debate and which won’t even have a full CBO score.
This is what I honestly don’t get about the whole process. If you sampled a Democratic congresscritter in late 2009/early 2010, they’d be able to explain the bill under discussion and have a meaningful discussion about what it would do. They would also know that this was going to be a tough vote and very well might cost seats. But they could say with a straight face that once the public experienced the benefits of the bill, they’d like it and come around even if they didn’t like it right at the moment. Now, the backlash against ACA was maybe stronger than expected and the ACA didn’t have all the positive effects as intended, it certainly wasn’t and isn’t perfect. But this was not on its face a completely insane plan.
Here? The Republican caucus on the whole doesn’t know what exactly the plan is on any given day and either doesn’t know all the effects or doesn’t care. No meaningful debates, and it’s being sold as a remedy to premiums and deductibles being “too high”, when if anything it will do the exact opposite of solve those issues. And if we’ve learned something from ACA it’s that if you mess with the health care system then you end up owning it entirely - health care costs had been going up every year since forever and yet it was Obamacare that gets blamed for rising costs now, and everyone blames anything they don’t like about the health care system on it. Assuming the Republicans actually pass Graham-Cassidy or something like it, what is their plan for selling the public on the fallout? People won’t notice that millions of people lose coverage, or they won’t care? Do they just figure if the alternative is voting for a Democrat, then their voters will just suck it up and deal? If that’s the plan, is that actually right?
I really don’t know, and as someone who is perfectly healthy and functional with moderate treatments but totally uninsurable under the old rules and possible future rules, it keeps me up nights.
Latest from the CBO is that they won’t be able “to provide point estimates of the effects on the deficit, health insurance coverage, or premiums for at least several weeks.”
IOW, they would be passing it blind. McCain seems to be bothered by that, but we’ll see how much.
Reports are that they aren’t hearing much from callers. Please call your MoC about it, even if they are Dems, but especially if they are GOP. It’s important. Really.
Very simple really. The strong supporters of Trump only care that Trump over turns ANYTHING that uppity black man did. They are now burning their stupid MAGA hats because Trump dares to make a deal with Democrats about DACA.
Trump crawled into the swamp for support. He doesn’t give one shit about anything but popularity. Now he finds himself surrounded by people that are very much just like him. He would love it if it wasn’t for the fact that it’s showing what true assholes they really are… And It may hurt his bottom line and prevent his golden name from going up on projects.
Hearing that House GOP moderates are uneasy with Graham-Cassidy. If you have a GOP rep call about Graham-Cassidy, especially if you are in a state like NY or CA. If in Peter King’s district (NY), call to say he’s doing the right thing saying he’ll vote against GC. Remind him you are paying attention.
The four states mentioned would have provided services to some number of expanded Medicaid enrollees - a subset of overall Medicaid recipients - and received 100% matching federal funds for those enrollees in totals exceeding the other states. They would have covered more people, more services, higher costs or some combination of those in order to get to those totals. That’s my understanding of Obamacare funds.
Like an award for Most Improvement, it would make sense that Maryland surpasses some other states that were more liberal with benefits pre-ACA in comparison (NJ, PA probably) or less generous to their new enrollees after it (AZ, IN). State population is only one factor.
I think the debt deal and DACA were traps. The Democrats got suckered into worrying about a debt ceiling that quite easily would have been blamed on Republicans, and I’m sorry, but DACA dreamers are not a priority over the healthcare of everyone else.
It will pass the House without much of a fight. The best chance to stop it is in the senate, and before the end of the month. The Republicans might have actually picked the best time to squeak this one through with yet another major hurricane barreling through the Caribbean and the Russia investigation heating back up again.
Once more into the breach, folks - warm up those dialing fingers, and call your Congresscritters. If you know they’re against Graham-Cassidy, thank them and let them know you support them. If they’re for it or on the fence, remind them that G-C would eliminate protections for people with pre-existing conditions, in addition to the tens of millions who would lose access to insurance altogether. And NOBODY wants to bring back the bad old days for people with pre-existing conditions.
(Except for the Republican Party, which is trying to sneak this through, hoping that nobody’s paying attention until it’s too late. They’re the Party of Evil. And if anyone says this is name-calling, they’d better explain why the GOP is trying to push this through, if they’re not evil. Evil is as evil does.)
I apologize if this has been addressed, since I haven’t been keeping up with the thread, but I have a question to ask, and this seemed an appropriate place to ask (rather than starting a new thread).
I’ve heard that the reason the GOP is reviving this zombie one more time is because when they went back home to their districts they got an earful about how they have not delivered on their pledge to repeal ACA.
really? Who has been chiding them thus? I’ve seen much news coverage about angry constituents telling their senators and reps NOT to repeal ACA, but I don’t recall any rallies of angry voters begging their congressmen and women to please, please repeal ACA, as they’d promised.
Did I miss something? is the media truly biased in its coverage, and these events simply didn’t make the news? Or was this all “quiet”, in the sense of them receiving lots of angry phone calls, e-mails, and letters from voters who want them to stick to their word?
Or is it on a wholly different level, not grass-roots groups calling for this, but influential big-donor groups calling for it, or conservative pundits or think tanks that are putting on the pressure?
I can imagine any or all of these scenarios, but which, if any, is true. I’m not looking for opinions – I’m wondering if anyone can tell me and back it up with cites.
To the extent that Republicans were reporting counts of calls for and against ACA repeal earlier this year, the balance was heavily against repeal/replace. So unless there’s been a more recent upsurge, I’d say this hasn’t been happening. And if the news media are allowing GOP Congresscritters to imply that it is, they should damn well ask for counts of calls and letters for and against repeal/replace.
Can’t tell you here. A couple of years ago, I thought I had a pretty good handle on the GOP ecosystem, but it’s gotten a lot weirder in the Age of Trump.
I sometimes wonder if it’s gotten to the point that most of the GOP Congresscritters themselves want to repeal Obamacare, and they’d give it their best shot no matter whether anyone outside was pressuring them or not. A lot of them, especially those that got elected in the 2010 and 2014 waves, are True Believers, after all.
But even that’s just a WAG. No real knowledge, no cites.
ETA: I’ve been enjoying the reappearance of your classic sig.
I disagree that the debt deal and the DACA issue will necessarily shape what happens now with health care.
What do you mean “the Democrats got suckered”? What else should they have been doing, instead of working on the debt deal and pushing to keep DACA? I mean, i guess they could have been locked in a room redesigning Obamacare in an effort to create a more viable system of public health care, but how much support do you think the Republicans are going to give to a Democratic health care plan right now? Some Republicans might mouth platitudes about working across the aisles, but the fact is that a considerable portion of the party just wants to kill the ACA, and has no interest in working to fix it.
Nothing about working on the debt or DACA will prevent Democrats from opposing the latest iteration of Republicans’ health care idiocy, and nothing about the debt deal or the DACA debate will necessarily help Republicans get their latest abomination of a bill through the Senate.
The debt deal and CR took away one of the time sucks in September. It unexpectedly freed up a huge chunk of the calendar, which matters because of the hard deadline for the reconciliation.
I understand that, but i don’t think that necessarily makes the debt deal a case of a Dems getting suckered. The latest abomination of a health bill still has to clear quite a few hurdles to get through, with many of the same really crappy problems (and some even worse ones) that got it shot down by their own party members last time around.
Sorry, I was ignoring the suckered part, just focused on the timing issues.
The really crappy problems didn’t stop nearly all of the GOP senators from going for it last time, and this time McCain’s bestie is sponsoring. I’m worried.
In a world in which Rand Paul is just posturing to get some kind of concession, what concession do we think he is going for? And will they have the ability to make an amendment with the time left? I guess they don’t have to worry about getting an updated CBO score with any amendment since they don’t have an original one!
It’s really hard to figure out. He voted no on BCRA, yes on partial repeal (the 2015 bill that didn’t replace anything), and yes on skinny.
But at the time, people didn’t think BCRA would pass, so there may not have been any pressure on him. And how like BCRA would he consider GC? It’s very similar in most respects, but it does end support for ACA marketplaces entirely in 2027, which BCRA didn’t do.