Trump Obamacare Repeal Blew Up Bigly Because of a House Divided Against Itself

By Enola Gay Tail Gunner S/Sgt. George R. (Bob) Caron (SElephant at zh.wikipedia) [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons

Trump’s really big supporters openly grieved that the explosion of his emphatically promised Obamacare replacement bodes poorly for all of Trump’s plans. Fox’s Sean Hannity and Lou Dobbs harangued the Republican party for failing to take the reins and lead now that the party finally has the chance to prove it can do what it has promised. Hannity stated that numerous high authorities told him failure of this partial repeal marks the end of any Obamacare repeal for 2017.

This first attempt by Trump and his party to see if they can accomplish anything together was by everyone’s account (except Trump’s) a dismal failure. Even Paul Ryan, who drafted the plan that Trump endorsed, admitted the enormity of the failure quite honestly. The least I can say for him (not being one who likes him in the slightest) is that he owned this humiliation of the entire Republican party.

Ryan picked up the argument leveled against Republicans by Democrats when they were running congress, which said that it is easy to be an opposition party and simply stand against everything, but quite a different matter to be creative and actually govern. Democrats long argued that Republicans really have no plan to replace Obamacare that could possibly succeed — that they were all talk — and Republicans just proved them right. Since Republicans kept Democrats completely out of the discussion, it’s fair to say Republicans failed entirely on their own.

Ryan failed embarrassingly, and I question whether his leadership will survive this failure, except for the fact that the faction most responsible for the failure (outside of Ryan himself) is the one that would likely seek his blood if Ryan had succeeded. Nevertheless, they cannot stand him and would probably join any other faction that now wants to bring him down. The choice of a new leader might be the only thing that could, at this point, save the Republican party from itself, but it seems highly unlikely they could agree on who the leader should be.

Trump failed bigly, too, because the truth is that he swore over and over to his supporters that he would get a “great” replacement through congress as one of his first orders of business. Granted he did not say he would succeed right away, but only that he would make it his first order of business. It is, however, now questionable that he will ever get a replacement through, much less a great one. He has three more years to try again, but a total failure within your own party to get your first order of business done, especially when it is something the entire Republican party has said it will do over and over for years and when you are in your honeymoon period, is no small failure.

Ryan has manned up to that. The party needs to also. Trump blamed it on Democrats, but that actually is deplorable, because Trump knew every time he made the promise that he didn’t have a ghost of a chance at getting Democrat support, given how much he attacked them over the plan. How could he not know that unless he is delusional? The last group in the world that would help him repeal Obamacare would be Democrats. So, if the repeal’s failure is their fault, give that they were never even included in the discussion, the failure to realize the obvious — that they would never support him — was his own.

Republicans could learn from this and do better, but it remains to be seen whether they are able and willing to learn. That requires humility, which is always scarce in congress. In the meantime, the failure to deliver Trump’s big promise of “immediate Obamacare repeal” is a death knell to the Trump Rally, and the clock is ticking against all of Trump’s plans.

(It doesn’t guarantee that the stock market will immediately crash, though it easily could; but its rally days are over. My prediction last year was that the rally would end as soon as Trump and congress had to actually work together. That is when investors would be forced to grasp reality and see that nothing Trump has promised is anywhere near as likely to come to pass as they believe. That is when I expected they will start to let go of their Tumphoria. Candidate promises are easily made. Legislation is not, and congress has never been more divided. Neither has that congressional subset called Republicans.

 

A house divided against itself

 

Here is how it all came down.

The proposed American Health Care Act (AHCA) died because the House Republican Conference (the official name for the entire Republican caucus in the House of Representatives) is divided into factions that aligned in three groups.  When the center group — the largest group of Republicans who solidly backed Paul Ryan’s bill — tried to move further right to appease the most conservative group, it lost votes from the group that is furthest left (more centrist with respect to American politics overall). There are nowhere near enough votes in the center group of Republicans to beat Democratic opposition, and compromise toward one faction lost the other; so no House majority could be built.

It is hard to say exactly who was in each group because no vote was taken to put members on record, but this appears to be generally how things fell apart:

1) By far the largest group would have consisted of the house’s largest conservative faction (172 members), known as the Republican Study Committee, probably joined by members of the House Republican Conference who do not identify with any particular faction. I’m talking here about the group that solidly supported President Trump and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan on the AHCA as originally drafted.

The Republican Study Committee — formed in 1973 to keep an eye on the party’s moderate leadership during the Nixon-Ford years — is the House’s oldest active faction. It has allied itself over the years with the National Rifle Association, the Heritage Foundation, Focus on the Family, the religious right, Concerned Women for America, the conservative magazine National Review.  One might now categorize it as representing the center of the House Republican Conference (though the truest middle consists people who don’t belong to any faction).

This caucus, as the House Republican Conference’s mainstay faction, has included such Republican luminaries as Vice President Dan Quayle, former Vice President Dick Cheney, Majority Leader Eric Cantor, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, and current Vice President Mike Pence. House Speaker John Boehner was not a member of the group.

2) The smallest, rewest, and most conservative faction of the House Republican Conference, called the “Freedom Caucus,” was established in 2015 to battle then Speaker John Boehner, particularly to fight his approval of Obamacare (the Affordable Care Act). These members of congress can be seen as the present rabble rousers because this is the faction that was willing to shut down the government in the original fight against Obamacare. Naturally, this group remains set toward making sure Obamacare is completely repealed and is willing to shut down government again, including apparently the leader of the House and the President just to make sure Obamacare is fully repealed. Not compromising on abolishing Obamacare was more important to them than whether or not Trump succeeds by getting off to a strong start.

The Freedom Caucus is tough enough that it forced John Boehner to remove his butt from the speaker’s cushion, which led to his exiting congress altogether, so Paul Ryan knows full well they could accomplish that again. This battle-hardened caucus embraces the tea party folks, but it is not the Tea Party Caucus, which is now nearly inactive because the official Tea Party Caucus was largely rejected by citizens in the tea party movement (including members of congress, such as Marco Rubio, who were elected by those citizens). It was rejected because the tea party movement saw the Tea Party Caucus as a Republican attempt to hijack a grass-roots movement. By nature, those who identify themselves as part of the tea party movement do not want to see their movement institutionalized or co-opted by the establishment.

The Freedom Caucus currently has thirty-one members. The group that initially opposed the ACHA certainly included this faction and likely some of the Republicans’ more libertarian faction, formed by Representative Ron Paul, called the Liberty Caucus. These two factions overlap in membership. Michelle Bachman, for example, was a founder of the Tea Party Caucus (now largely subsumed by the Freedom Caucus) and a member of the Liberty Caucus.

3) A larger faction of the House Republican Conference consists of about fifty people, who are the left-most Republicans in the House of Representatives (meaning only that they are moderates since no one in the Republican party is a leftist). This group was established in 1994 as the “Tuesday Group” when Republicans took control of the House under the more conservative leadership of Newt Gingrich. Gingrich rallied Republicans around his Contract with America. The Tuesday Group formed to resist Gingrich’s more conservative positioning of the Republican party.

The actual battle went like this: Unquestionably, those aligned with the Freedom Caucus felt the original AHCA bill, as proposed by Paul Ryan, did not go far enough in repealing Obamacare. Therefore, the group of Republicans who were with Trump and Ryan modified the bill to strip out more of Obamacare by taking down some of its Medicaid provisions and other benefits in order go gain some of the more conservative votes. That resulted in those aligned with the Tuesday Group (the most moderate Republicans) feeling the bill now went further right than they could tolerate. As a result, the Republicans lost some moderate votes when they compromised to pick up more conservative votes, and they never gained all of the conservative votes. So, they could not find a majority that could agree on any bill, and they had already thumbed their noses at Democrats completely, so they certainly wouldn’t get any help there.

 

Why Trump faces big-league troubles in enacting any of his stimulus plans

 

As Lincoln said in quoting Jesus Christ, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” (Lincoln was talking about government. Jesus was talking about the devil. Beg me to describe the difference.)

One major buy zolpidem online overnight accusation Democrats made against Republicans when Republicans ran an opposition government against Obama was that it is easy to simply be against everything. It is quite another job to govern — to have a clear vision, a good vision that will actually do something for America, and then to unite behind it. Anybody can oppose things without an idea in his or her head as to what will actually work to do some good.

Now that he’s been knocked around by his own party, Paul Ryan co-opted the argument as his own: (See his comments at the start and then at the 6:30 time maker and especially 8:12 marker.)

 

 

 

 

And this is exactly why Trump is going to have a hard time getting his legislation passed. Republicans could somewhat unite in opposing anything Democrats came up with because even enemies are known to unite around a common foe. However, the formation of the Freedom Caucus and its overthrow of John Boehner proves even that kind of unity is never complete and hard to achieve. Coming up with great ideas, which Trump entrusted to Ryan, and then uniting around something you can support, though not fully, is harder still.

As the new opposition government, Democrats are solidly united against Trump, and the Republican party is too divided to create a large enough majority to overcome the Democrats. It has become increasingly divided since the tea-party movement began, so that will not easily change. It could change now that all Republicans should be able to see that, if they don’t unite around something, they will get nothing at all; but will it?

The Freedom Caucus has not exactly shown itself to be a group that is amendable to softening its positions toward the party’s center, and the Tuesday Group, which might soften toward the party’s center, will never go as far right on anything as the Freedom Caucus demands. That said, other issues may be less polarizing than Obamacare, given that the Freedom Caucus largely formed around the intention of defeating Obamacare during the Boehner years.

It took only took a matter of days for plan number one to fall embarrassingly flat on its face. That’s a bitter reality for both Trump and Ryan because promises to repeal and replace Obamacare or just abolish it entirely were the biggest and most frequent pledges heard from all Republicans. So, if they can’t get together on that …

Moreover, Trump cannot just blame Ryan for this failure because Ryan was Trump’s Chosen One, entrusted with the entire task of developing Trump’s “really great” plan. The fact that Ryan is purely establishment and essentially was a NeverTrumper calls into question Trump’s judgment and his ability to delegate things he doesn’t know how to create to the right people to create them.

Trump clearly had no great plan of his own. He entrusted development of a plan to Ryan against the advice of his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, because Ryan is the only Republican who has put together any Obamacare-replacement plan in the past. Trump essentially just dusted off a plan that was sitting on the Republican playbook shelf and said, “Use parts of this.” He didn’t choose great people to create a plan, as he said he would; he chose Ryan, one of the worst, who chose to exclude all opinions during the creation process that were not closely aligned with his own.

The promises to get rid of Obamacare because it was “a really bad plan” were all empty promises because no Republican actually had any better idea, and America overall does not wish to simply default back to the situation that existed before Obamacare as being satisfactory either, though some would prefer it over Obamacare.

Trump even blinked on his get-tough negotiations with his own party. He said he was going to force a vote so that Republicans who voted against this repeal and replacement of parts of Obamacare would be held accountable on election day. He reneged and backed Ryan’s desire to simply pull the vote so that no one is held accountable and no one can see by what margin it actually failed. (Perhaps the failure was bigger than we know.) So, Trump cannot separate himself from Ryan’s failure because he chose and backed Ryan all the way.

As a result, no one had to go on record as being the reason hope of an Obamacare repeal in 2017 failed. As Ryan announced in the video above, Obamacare now stands as the law of the land for the foreseeable future because Republicans could not find any plan around which they could form a congressional majority. (In other words, he will not approve another go at it in this session of congress because the votes are not there, nor is the hope of compromise; and any future party leader is going to be hesitant to take this battle on, seeing how Ryan got clobbered.)

Due to a small faction demanding everything, no Republican got anything they could take back to their voters. Even strong supporters of President Trump like Lou Hobbs and Sean Hannity see this as a massive failure of the Republican House to accomplish anything:

 

 

 

As Hannity said to all congressional Republicans in the video above just before the bill’s final hour,

 

It’s time for you to give the American people a bill that you have now promised them for almost eight years. I would argue tonight, Failure is not an option for the president of the United States and his first piece of legislation. If you don’t succeed, you will have nobody to blame but yourselves…. And here’s my message to you people in congress: For the love of God, after eight years, can you please do your job? Can you please find a way to work together? Can you please find a way to serve your country, not yourselves, not your re-election?

 

They just couldn’t do it. They could not succeed even in the slightest compromise even with the promise that this was only phase one and more of their wishes would come later. Republicans now have all the reins of power, and they still accomplished nothing!

 

What it all means for the Trump Rally

 

This total fiasco — which was huge, really huge — demonstrates why I’ve said all along that Trump’s road to getting his plans enacted through congress, even with Republicans in control of both houses, is far from being the likelihood that has been priced into the stock market by the Trump Rally.

While the AHCA defeat is not the end of the game for Trump’s plans, it shows exactly why I’ve said the Trump Rally is a clear case of irrational exuberance on the scale that precedes a major crash (said when writing about the stock market’s response to Trump’s stimulus plans back in December):

 

Is the stock market irrational in its exuberance for shifting so much just because of Trump’s pledges, which are far, far from becoming reality? I think so. I haven’t even talked about Democrat resistance to Trump’s plans, and he’s already got resistance from the Republican leader of the senate…. That doesn’t mean the market won’t keep going up. Who knows what the maximum height or duration of irrational exuberance is (because who knows how crazy people can get); but I am certain of this much: the higher the stock market rockets upward on such irrationality, the harder it falls into the chasm of ever-growing debt from which it has been constructed…. There is nothing you’re going to do that can stop the markets (in stocks and bonds) from having their hangover when the bubbly stuff is over and irrational exuberance suddenly looks like delirium. Our greatest economic crashes have always happened when least expected. (“Irrational Exuberance in US Stock Market Grasps at 20K for Dow“)

 

This past week proves the stock market was irrationally premature in rising to Trump’s stimulus talk. Trump has no possibility of any support from Democrats, who hate his guts on just about everything he stands for, and we have now seen proof that he has no majority support he can count on in his own party.

This is one major reason I have refused to join those who believe things will and are now turning around economically because of Trump’s election, even though it has probably cost me readers (given that my audience is largely anti-establishment). For Trump’s plans to become reality, he has to build consensus around a plan that can save the economy, and he is far from either consensus or a plan that can save the economy from its fundamental flaws. The best his plan would do — if he could get it enacted — is pump it higher for a little longer. You can accomplish a little bit in the US by executive decree, but not much. Maybe Republicans will now join around a tax plan, but time is not on their side.

Moreover, failure of the Obamacare repeal makes the math of Trump’s tax plans harder because he was counting on an Obamacare repeal to soften some of the costs in his budget. If he planned to get some budgetary ideas through without negotiating with Democrats by using the budget reconciliation process that eliminates the possibility of a filibuster, this failure also calls this approach into serious doubt as a strategy. The market should start to sort these realizations out in the days and weeks ahead, and that will take a toll on the Trump Rally, maybe even cutting it down entirely to where it began.

So, my prediction remains that the economy, including the stock market, goes down this year for the numerous reasons I’ve given beyond the solitary reason that has just played out above. He hasn’t even started squaring off with the Democrat’s opposition. This one went down just from the opposition within his own party! Total dysfunctionality within his own party and a possible revolt against the leader of the house is not going to go choke down easily in the marketplace.

It’s time to wake up and smell the ammonia!

 

 

25 Comments

  1. Ping from Auldenemy:

    Pity you aren’t in government Sir Dave. That is the sad thing in the West now, few truly good and intelligent people seem to go into politics. All we have is dross. Incredible isn’t it; all these US politicians and their various political Committees (both Republican and Democrat), and the most powerful nation on earth can’t provided a Health Care system that works and is sustainable. I have read that in some States the yearly health insurance premiums are through the roof, also that some health care providers are pulling out of some States because Obama Disaster Care just isn’t bringing home the bacon for them. 

    Why should Americans on average wages have to go broke by paying absurd health care costs to fund those who prefer to spend their small, mostly welfare incomes on becoming obese? Maybe some half way house would have been a better idea, as in making sure all children up to adulthood have access to free health care and from then on out every fit adult, what ever their income, should be responsible for their own health care and if they choose not to insure themselves then touch luck. Maybe government should have promoted community health schemes, paying into them a certain amount and leaving the residents of each community to work out how they will fund the gap. That of course would really be government connecting with, and working with, the people but that never seems to happen. 

    Another thing I don’t get is how both Republicans and Democrats just look the other way when it comes to major drug companies having pushed their prices sky high. Apparently even some basic medications that used to cost a few dollars now cost tens – even hundreds – of dollars more. That alone shows the corruption going on between these big drug companies and those in government who lobby for them because they are getting big pay offs on the side. I note too the huge rise in the use of synthetic heroin in the USA, with doctors prescribing it for relatively minor ailments like headaches and back pain and now hundreds of thousands – if not millions – of Americans addicted to it! Apparently Americans consume 80% of the global drug market. That means too many Americans have either become hypochondriacs, or are wimps! Apologies for that insult but it is incredible to me that the USA government isn’t right on to that and showing a determination to change it. Trump’s slogan, ‘Make America Great Again’ is going to be even harder as the US slides into becoming the land of prescription drug junkies. For us all in the West, the amount of illegal drug consumption is bad enough without the rest of us becoming addicted to legal medications. There is way too much prescribing in the UK and EU too so it looks like we are catching America up when it comes to popping pills for the slightest reason.

    America is one of the greatest contributors to medical science; it has pioneered new treatments and its people deserve better than to have a health care system that is literally imploding. Although China is catching up, the USA still has the most billionaires of any nation on this planet. It is terrible the way money in this Brave New World of the West appears not to funnel down anymore but to funnel up to the 1%. First the banksters asset strip us all and now the big drug companies are helping to make health care unaffordable in the West (our NHS is also at breaking point). We seem to have more and more lunatics running our asylums.

    Multum In Parvo
    Incredible isn’t it; all these US politicians and their various political Committees (both Republican and Democrat), and the most powerful nation on earth can’t provided a Health Care system that works and is sustainable. I have read that in some States the yearly health insurance premiums are through the roof, also that some health care providers are pulling out of some States because Obama Disaster Care just isn’t bringing home the bacon for them. 

    Why should Americans on average wages have to go broke by paying absurd health care costs to fund those who prefer to spend their small, mostly welfare incomes on becoming obese? Maybe some half way house would have been a better idea, as in making sure all children up to adulthood have access to free health care and from then on out every fit adult, what ever their income, should be responsible for their own health care and if they choose not to insure themselves then touch luck. Maybe government should have promoted community health schemes, paying into them a certain amount and leaving the residents of each community to work out how they will fund the gap. That of course would really be government connecting with, and working with, the people but that never seems to happen. 

    Another thing I don’t get is how both Republicans and Democrats just look the other way when it comes to major drug companies having pushed their prices sky high. Apparently even some basic medications that used to cost a few dollars now cost tens – even hundreds – of dollars more. That alone shows the corruption going on between these big drug companies and those in government who lobby for them because they are getting big pay offs on the side. I note too the huge rise in the use of synthetic heroin in the USA, with doctors prescribing it for relatively minor ailments like headaches and back pain and now hundreds of thousands – if not millions – of Americans addicted to it! Apparently Americans consume 80% of the global drug market. That means too many Americans have either become hypochondriacs, or are wimps! Apologies for that insult but it is incredible to me that the USA government isn’t right on to that and showing a determination to change it. Trump’s slogan, ‘Make America Great Again’ is going to be even harder as the US slides into becoming the land of prescription drug junkies. For us all in the West, the amount of illegal drug consumption is bad enough without the rest of us becoming addicted to legal medications. There is way too much prescribing in the UK and EU too so it looks like we are catching America up when it comes to popping pills for the slightest reason.

    America is one of the greatest contributors to medical science; it has pioneered new treatments and its people deserve better than to have a health care system that is literally imploding. Although China is catching up, the USA still has the most billionaires of any nation on this planet. It is terrible the way money in this Brave New World of the West appears not to funnel down anymore but to funnel up to the 1%. First the banksters asset strip us all and now the big drug companies are helping to make health care unaffordable in the West (our NHS is also at breaking point). We seem to have more and more lunatics running our asylums.

    Multum In Parvo

    • Ping from Knave_Dave:

      Here’s what happened to me and my wife.

      We had a great healthcare plan. We could choose our own specialists at will. Almost everything was covered, and most things were covered at 100% of cost, less a $10 copayment. Then…

      1) Obama promised us we would get to keep our existing plan. As soon as Obamacare was passed, our provider let us know that plan would not longer be available to anyone. They were taking it off the market.

      2) My wife’s employer informed us that they were going to take us down to an HMO plan (where you have to choose on of the insurance companies doctors as your primary-care physician, and where any specialist you need must receive a written referral from your primary-car physician. If you’re primary-care physician won’t write a referral, you’re out of luck.

      3) They also told us that, because the dumbed-down plan was going to cost them a lot more than our old Cadillac plan, they would have to charge each of us $100 a month out of pocket to contribute to the cost of the plan, though they would be taking up the lion’s share of the increase themselves.

      4) The new plan requires $20 copayments with each visit.

      Nice. I’m sure you can tell we’re thrilled with how much we had to dummy down and how much we had to add to our costs in order to help other people get covered.

  2. Ping from Chris P:

    Lets look who are the biggest players of all, the insurance companies! If you think for one minute they are going to let their monopoly go away with the vote of some politicans you are sadly mistaken. Big money will always rule and banks and insurance companies are the biggest. We will continue to get fleeced by them until the burden is to great and the govt. goes into hyperinflation then the one payer system comes in. This has always been where it was going and no populace vote was ever going to change that.

    You did another great job Dave!! Keep up the good work.

  3. Ping from QEternity:

    This bill deserved to fail. Healthcare is 16% of the US “economy”. It’s more complex than that crappy ObamaCare could deal with and more complex than a quick fix Republican bill that would allow Trump to proclaim a “win”.

    Healthcare in this country will get fixed for good, and correctly, when every government employee is completely subject to it — personally and out of pocket. And no sooner.

  4. Ping from Tina Smith:

    Sad that so many Americans still do not get the fact that all presidents today are “placed” there by the thugs that run our country, and that both Dem’s and Rep’s are on the same agenda. I did not vote this time around because I did not trust Trump anymore than I trusted Hillary. I knew Trump had been a strong liberal for a long time, had donated to the Clintons and Pelosi and Democratic party, and was friends with the Clintons, and wanted a one payee health care system. His entire campaign was a lie. He played everyone with his great con job. I do not understand how gullible Americans are to think that a man with his connections and $$$ will care about “we the people” and do a 100 degree turn in ALL of his views. Impossible. He never intended to repeal Obamacare (nor will he lower taxes, at least not for the middle class). The facts of what he really believes is all there in black and white online and easily found for reference. Trump left behind a lot of videos of interviews proving he had a love relationship with the liberal cause. Yet, people believed that this man suddenly turned conservative. When will the masses learn that everything is an illusion and that nothing will be done to help Americans, but everything will be done to further the New World Order global agenda. Do people really think the Elite will let someone run for president who would undo all they have achieved in destroying our freedoms and lives? No. The infiltration is great, and the phony fights between Republicans and Democrats is a drama set in place so that Americans think there is a choice for them, that their voice matters, and that someone in congress cares about our lives. Not so. The agenda is to control the populations and socialize our way of life. Dr. Janda (another blogger gave a link to his viewpoints) was right on. Obamacare was created to fail in order that a one payee system would be put in place. He said the fastest way to control the population is by controlling their healthcare. Will Trump or Ryan chance bucking the NWO agenda and repeal Obamacare? Absolutely not! This is why they introduced a bill they knew would fail, or if passed by some sheer strange reason, would fail too. Trump, during his campaign stated clearly he was for universal healthcare. He still is, and thus why he is waiting for Obamacare to implode. He says, “don’t worry, we will fix this with a wonderful plan once Obamacare implodes!” Right. Sure. Of course he will…the Elite’s plan will be wonderful to all of them after they implement their dream healthcare, so that they can continue saying who can live and who can die. Until Americans realize they are being had by every politician in power, and that they all lie and say whatever it takes to keep the socialist agenda on track, we will continue to lose our freedoms, our lives, and our $$$. They win because evil has no boundaries. The masses are too passive or in denial to understand their evil capabilities, and that is why they have continued to take over our way of life and do it without any opposition. They create false oppositions and create illusions and fake news and fake terrorist attacks, etc etc etc because they know they can do it and fool millions and get away with it. Trump showed his true colors this last week early in the game. But, does he care? No. He is doing what he was placed there to do…further the agenda for the globalization of nations and control of the masses. Totalitarianism is here because Americans have closed their eyes and refused to stand against it. Voting for a change will never happen, not when the entire government is run by thugs.But that is what they want us to believe. Maybe by the time Trump is done breaking every campaign promise he made, some people will wake up. I highly recommend reading: The Creature from Jekyll Island, by G Edward Griffin, for more proof and facts concerning this government’s agenda against America and Europe.

  5. Ping from Craig A. Mouldey:

    I have a theory about this because what Ryan cooked up was just a different version of the same screw job Obama no care offered. Yet Trump supported it and said it was great! Trump is not stupid to have really believed that. And he is well aware Ryan is his enemy. I think Trump played Ryan knowing his plan would fail. Now all the talk is about Ryan stepping down.
    It is not hard to devise a health care plan that is affordable and effective. But the wrong people are cooking up these schemes. It should be created by good doctors like Rand and Ron Paul. Or Dr. Janda who has approached the Reagan white house with his ideas. Reagan was warned the insurance companies wouldn’t like it but Reagan said do what is best for the people. Sadly, Reagan’s second term ran out and it didn’t get done. He talked with Mr. C.I.A. Bush and Slick Willie and was told certain groups would not like his plan. Then they sent the IRS to persecute him because he was a threat. Listen to his interview. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVV_lL-VOHM
    The insurance companies and Pharmaceutical companies don’t make money with healthy people. If his plan and approach is followed prices will drop in a big way without restricting some from care and having death panels everyone will soon know who is bought off by these industries in the way they vote.

    • Ping from Knave_Dave:

      If you’re right, Trump is playing a game that is going to cost him a lot of political capital because everyone knows Trump chose Ryan, so Trump cannot dodge the blame because he has always said his strength is in choosing great people to create great plans. Didn’t happen.

      So, this plan makes it look like Trump bungled in the one area he is supposed to be strongest. That is going to raise a lot of concern that he’s not even as great as his areas of strength as he claims he is. I’m more inclined to think it looks like a bungled operation than a sly way to get Ryan out of the way (though I’m pretty sure it will do that, too). Trump even went out of his way to say Ryan did a great job after the failure was a fact.

      So, I think you may be giving Trump too much credit.

      I DEFINITELY agree that the real problem with all these plans is that the Republican ESTABLISHMENT has been dead set from the start at making sure that Obamacare continues to make the medical establishment rich and makes insurance companies even richer. Because of that, the plan winds up making medical expenses higher, and Ryan’s plan would not change that.

      What is needed is to make medicine more competitive by forcing some changes on the AMA and by giving insurance companies the right to compete across state lines with medicine, just as they do with automobile insurance, and by NOT guaranteeing insurance companies any role in the plan — just clearing the path for competition among companies.

      RyanCare and BoehnerCare and Obamacare all try to make things as profitable as possible for the medical profession and insurance profession because that’s the establishment’s job in either party — to protect the corporatocracy; but they have to do it will convincing the proletariate that they are serving them. Trickle-down economics is one lie they use to keep the masses in line. Another is that one must work through insurance companies to create good capitalist insurance coverage. (As if government has some job to make sure that certain industries make good money, even if it is to the detriment of the majority of citizens.)

      • Ping from Auldenemy:

        Agree totally David. So far Trump has done the opposite of what he claimed he was going to do. He announced to the world that if he got into office then Hillary would be in jail. The minute he did get into office he came out and said the Clintons were, ‘Good people’. How can anyone turn that quickly! Trump spent his entire campaign repeating over and over again three main slogans: Make America Great Again.

        • Ping from Knave_Dave:

          Yup. The day after he was elected, he switched completely from endless encouragement of “lock her up” to “let her go!” He hasn’t said anything different since. Those who wanted to believe he would stand by his big campaign rhetoric said he was probably just saying that so Obama wouldn’t grant her a pre-emptive pardon (not sure that’s even possible but its what Trump supporters said). Well, Obama hasn’t been able to pardon her for two months now, and where is the Hillary investigation?

          Obamacare? TOTAL fail, though he seems to be trying to pick it back up and work it in a less public way, which Rand Paul said this weekend is looking promising. So, we’ll see. Earlier he said that, if there was not vote, that’d be the last he’d have to do with for the this year. Guess he was just talking flap.

          He’s tried to fulfill his immigration policies, but in ham-fisted ways that so far aren’t getting anywhere.

          His promises of better relations with Russia are not looking good now that he has taken sides by saying, “Yes Russia did hack the election.” Things are starting to slide the same way with Russia that they did with Hillary’s infamous reset.

          We shall see. He may get on top of his game and accomplish something he said he would; but his tax reform plan is the biggest gift to the rich I’ve ever seen (as described so far).

          All in all, not looking too promising so far.

  6. Ping from Jackie Puppet:

    I figured Trump would have problems implementing some of his agenda with Republicans, especially with Ryan getting re-elected as Speaker, but I didn’t think it would be on Obamacare either. The Tuesday Group is full of RINOs like Adam Kinzinger, who is nothing but a John McCain-in-training – they all have got to go.

  7. Ping from Kelly Thomas:

    Since when did conservatives become OK with a replacing obama care instead of simply repealing it? With the former, government still has control over healthcare with just some minor tweaks. Again, the football gets advanced no matter the team, just at different increments.

    • Ping from Knave_Dave:

      Ah, but we’re not talking conservatives. We’re talking Republicans, and they have been OK with Obamacare just as it is since Boehner. They have to talk a good game of wanting to destroy it, though, to keep some of their donors pacified. That’s how Obamacare got passed in the first place was with a fair amount of Republican support.

      Aside from that, exactly: the football gets further advanced for the establishment no matter which team — Democrat or Republican — has the ball because both serve the financial-corporate establishment. While Obamacare is bad for many corporate players and big business owners like the Koch brothers, which is why Republicans object to it, it is great for others like the medical establishment, and originally it was hoped it would be great for the insurance industry as it would force everyone to get insurance, some with government help (i.e., with held from other citizens). What Republicans mostly want to see now is changes that will make it great for the insurance industry. That seems to be what Ryan’s plan was aimed at.

      So, it depends a lot on which politicians are owned by which industries.

      • Ping from Knave_Dave:

        The comment above may have been a bit confused in its historic timeline of events, so let me attempt to clarify: Saying House Republicans are OK with Obamacare was the wrong way to state it, but the argument still runs generally the same way. (I don’t spend as much time researching comments I make as I would for an article.)

        As I look back through the timing of things, I think it was more when Boehner shut down the efforts of some Republicans to REPEAL Obamacare entirely, not in trying to stop its original passage that the Freedom caucus came about. The Republican leadership (and the majority that followed that leadershp) — which descended through Boehner’s efforts to his chosen, Ryan — seemed intent upon keeping Obamacare in place but in making some changes to it. So, it is that sense that I meant Republicans (by and in large) were OK with it in that they didn’t want to repeal it.

        The Freedom Caucus formed largely over the issue of Obamacare. I was thinking when I wrote my comment above that they wanted to shut down government in order to STOP ITS PASSAGE; but, upon further reflection, I think it was in order to get it REPEALED the year it went into effect. Boehner, having seen how nicely government shutdown went for Newt Gingrich, didn’t want to do that. He’d also had his bought with nearly shutting down government over the debt ceiling, when he came close to letting government financing dry up, and he found out (as I said he would before it played out) that his cliff-eddge brinksmanship resulted in the US credit rating being downgraded, EVEN THOUGH HE NEVER ACTUALLY WENT THAT FAR (as I also said he would never do). The very fact that he was willing to play that close to edge gave S&P the heebie jeebies as to how reckless politicians might get.

        Rather than trying to repeal Obamacare, Boehner seemed more intent upon achieving ammendments that would sabotage it sufficiently that it would die of its own internal flaws, just as it is now doing. (Though I can’t recall now how many of his changes were gained before its passage and how many were gained afterward when he leveraged his own party’s desire to shut down government to get Democrats to agree to some revisions.) His promise to Democrats always seemed to me (as an outsider, not privy to the actual conversations) to look like he was promising them he’d keep the extremist in his party from shutting down government and would keep his party in line IF the Dems would make certain ammendments.

        The end result was a plan that I believed was destined to fail as soon as I read about the revisions, but it was destined to fail because Republicans succeeded taking out key provisions that were necessary to make it work. (Take out just one or two key little gears, and the clock stops ticking.) I could no longer see how Obamacare had a ghost of a chance of working, and I feel those changes are exactly why Republicans are confident now in proclaiming its certain demise. Its obvious that the extreme right of his party wanted to abolish Obamacare altogether (far less painful for all Americans, even those who like Obamacare, than enduring the resulting flaws and the plan’s slow death) while Boehner wanted to sabotage it (which means we all get to go through the pain of its ultimately assured demise).

        Junior members of the Republican caucus, who were largely tea-party folk, felt they were being unfairly punished by Mr. Establishment Boehner when they pushed for shutting down government, and so they formed the Freedom caucus in revolt. The punishment was that Boehner told them they would be kept out of key positions of leadership, which they were. (One of the primary ways all speakers and whips keep their party in line.) These members formed the Freedom Caucus to fight back against him.

        So, the Freedom Caucus people were never OK with Obamacare at all, which is where my comment went too far, but the party’s center thought they could create something that would continue to keep the medical establishment rich, and they have fought all along to make certain that any plan that does go into effect keeps insurance companies rich. Obviously, they didn’t accomplish the latter, but that seems to be the way Boehner was always aimed and the way Ryan is now aimed — to make sure that everthing is done through insurance companies.

  8. Ping from William Philipson:

    Re: “Fox’s Sean Hannity and Lou Dobb’s regaled the Republican party”; no they didn’t – maybe they rebuked them. And what’s with the apostrophe in “Dobb’s”?

  9. Ping from annekarima53:

    While you bring out many good points I understood that it failed because the Koch brothers said they would pull their funding for anyone who voted for it. If that is the case and not fake news then everything else said about becomes mundane. Puppets on a string. Not just politicians but all of us.

    • Ping from Knave_Dave:

      I have no doubt that played a major factor if it is true. I don’t know if it is fake news or not, but I heard the same thing. It’s still just as true, though, that the party broke into three divisions with the far right always insisting on total repeal and the moderates pulling their votes when the center steered right. But undoubtedly the Koch brothers own a lot of politicians and played their usual role. After all, many of the changes Republicans want to see are changes that benefit rich people like the Koch brothers far more than anyone else. It’s always about helping the rich corporate CEOs.

  10. Ping from Doug Ross:

    Good bit, but you forgot to mention that every damn one of these GOP weaklings got ELECTED based upon a promise to destroy Obamacare. The voters want this abysmal law nuked from orbit.

    • Ping from Knave_Dave:

      Well, I thought I had conveyed it in the statement that a repeal of Obamacare was what every single Republican has promised for years (meaning promised in their campaigns). I guess what you mean is that they not only promised it, but it is THE promise that got them voted in. And what that means is the likelihood that any of them will get a second chance to do repeal or replace it in years ahead is unlikely, as they are not likely to survive the long.

      That COULD also mean that those who voted for these Republicans get disillusioned with Republicans entirely and don’t turn out for the next vote (given that they may have only the option of the incumbent for their Republican choice). That would throw the House back to Democrats, and end Trump’s hope of getting anything through. It depends on what else happens between now and then, and whether they can field primary Republican candidates who can take out the richly funded incumbent.

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