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| Home Front: Politix |
| The Conservatives Made a Mistake |
| 2017-03-25 |
| [PJMedia] ...Let's accept that Paul Ryan's healthcare bill wasn't optimal. If the Congressional Budget Office was anywhere close to correct in its original estimations, the bill would have cut government spending by $12.5 trillion, cut taxes by $900 million, repealed Obamacare's tax increases, and instituted the largest entitlement reform in the last thirty years. But yes, it's true, it wasn't full repeal. Indeed, as long as insurance companies are required to cover pre-existing conditions, government healthcare is with us, and the bill would not have changed that. And it is certainly fair to doubt whether the third phase of Ryan's three-phase plan -- the phase that would have returned the free market to insurance -- would ever have gotten past the Democrats. Perfect is an enemy of good? |
| Posted by:g(r)omgoru |
| #14 (1) Now Obamacare will cause pain and the Dems still own it. (2) As Scott Adams points out, this could result in the narrative shifting from Trump = Hitler to Trump = incompetent which is easier to deal with. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2017-03-25 19:52 |
| #13 Trump, unlike Congress, seems to take his promises seriously. |
| Posted by: Iblis 2017-03-25 16:14 |
| #12 President Trump appears to be viewing this as merely the first step of the process. From Al Ahram: Trump vows 'great' plan to replace Obamacare President Donald Trump on Saturday declared that Obamacare will fall apart and vowed to develop a "great" new health care plan for Americans to take its place. "ObamaCare will explode and we will all get together and piece together a great healthcare plan for THE PEOPLE. Do not worry!" the Republican said on Twitter. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2017-03-25 14:52 |
| #11 They don't call 'em the Stupid Party for nuthin. |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque 2017-03-25 13:31 |
| #10 Ryan and the freedom caucus look like idiots. The object of the short game is to take enough US Senate seats in the next mid-term election to finally get bills to the president's desk. This didn't help. |
| Posted by: Count Galeazzo Phaising4648 2017-03-25 13:13 |
| #9 End the mandate and the Minimum Essential Coverage rules. The rest will die of its own accord. |
| Posted by: Iblis 2017-03-25 13:00 |
| #8 If Dems had proposed this bill we'd all be celebrating its defeat. |
| Posted by: Thravimp Lover of the Antelope7006 2017-03-25 12:37 |
| #7 It probably would have been an improvement on the ACA, but it would still implode in short order. There was not enough benefit for the problems to be worth owning - better to let the Dems keep ownership. They can't repeal - not enough political muscle. They couldn't 'replace.' Maybe they can try smaller changes that could make repeal possible later. Pre-existing conditions coverage seems to be the biggest problem - address that in some kind of practical fashion - COBRA does that for workers moving between policies, and it doesn't seem unreasonable to prohibit insurance companies from dropping people who would otherwise maintain coverage, and then not cover conditions which developed while they were previously insured. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2017-03-25 11:11 |
| #6 What would Illinois penitentiary admission numbers amount to without state politicians? Eventually, nearly everyone finds their calling. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2017-03-25 09:13 |
| #5 Name one industry better as a result of government involvement. One. They are the best in the business for graft and it always improves with government involvement! |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2017-03-25 09:02 |
| #4 The best thing is for the government to get out of health care. Name one industry better as a result of government involvement. One. |
| Posted by: Zorba Wheagum7350 2017-03-25 07:28 |
| #3 What I mean is that they had quite a bit of time to prepare a proper bill, and this garbage is what they tried to throw out there. Its as if the leadership wanted to keep Obamacare, and they figured they would either keep their version of it, or throw a bill out there so bad they would have to pull it and just leave O-care in place. Ryan and McConnell deserve a special place in hell for screwing the R's that keep them in office. The right answer is to take the repeal bill from the last session, which they passed in both houses, and put it thru to President Trump, with a 2 year abeyance, which gives them time to generate a proper replacement with free market ideas and a lot less government involvement. You would think after the better part of a decade publicly calling for repeal, and talking about replacement plans, they might actually have had something substantial ready to go. Now the mask is off and those beltway Republicans, the so-called "leadership", are nothing more than Democrats in different colored suits when it comes to government power. |
| Posted by: Injun Bucket8891 2017-03-25 05:49 |
| #2 Depends on your definition of "good". Ryan's bill was crap, and they were going to railroad the thing thru like the Dems did, without a full reading/review. |
| Posted by: Injun Bucket8891 2017-03-25 05:41 |
| #1 So in a longer view, was the failure to pass a negotiated loss? If Trump wins the next (tax) initiative that's more jobs with more employer provided healthcare, albeit reduced coverage. |
| Posted by: al aSha-med 2017-03-25 05:29 |