Republican Congress Trying to Kill Health Care. AGAIN.

It's the circus that never ends, kids.

Even after three failed tries while in majority control of both wings of Congress, the GOP Senate is pushing one more plan to gut the everloving shit out of Obamacare (via Jeffrey Young at HuffPost):

For what feels like the 1,000th time this year, the Republican Senate is looking to ram through a hugely consequential health care bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act and “replace” it with ... a lot less.

The GOP Congress only has until Sept. 30 to advance health care legislation with a bare majority in the Senate, because that is when the special procedural rules enabling them to avoid a Democratic filibuster expire. That deadline seems to be motivating Republicans to line up behind a bill sponsored by Republican Sens. Bill Cassidy (La.) and Lindsey Graham (S.C.). This could mean a vote next week.

That’s despite the fact that this legislation has never been the subject of a public debate or the normal congressional committee process. The Congressional Budget Office also won’t have time to analyze how many people would have health insurance as a result of the bill, or how much the premiums would cost.

In other words, Congress would be passing a bill with major ramifications for many millions of people without first finding out exactly what it does...

You'll notice the Republicans in charge of the Senate do not care about procedure. They do not care about the costs of what they're trying to pass. They do not care to debate this in public.

They only care about the goddamn tax cuts for the rich they'll get out of this move.

I've said this before: Republicans can't help themselves. There's this terrible mix of sadism and greed that drives the party leadership to repeat themselves on achieving their obsessive goals towards tax cuts and deregulation and privatization. Even after decades of evidence that shows every promise they make about all that never pans out, and even after their efforts make things worse with collapsing economies and collapsing (or exploding) infrastructures.

So it's back to the phones, everybody. Call the Senate, call your Senator's local offices in-state, and register your horror and anger that Congress is trying to gut health care coverage. Again. And again. And again. AND AGAIN...

You wanna stop making these phone calls, America? STOP VOTING REPUBLICANS INTO OFFICE.

Hold Tight, Wait 'Til the Party's Over

So, what exactly just happened the last 48 hours regarding the Senate's attempt to nuke Obamacare? Via the Tampa Bay Times:

President Donald Trump declared Tuesday he's going to "let Obamacare fail" after the Republicans' effort to rewrite the 2010 health care overhaul imploded in Congress. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell proposed a vote on a backup plan simply repealing the statute, but desertions by his own party seemed to ensure that would fail, too.

Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said they opposed McConnell's Plan B. That's enough to spell defeat and could send a message to conservative Republicans that it is time to abandon efforts to tear down Obama's law.

There'd already been a bit of grumbling over how the Senate Replace bill had been mishandled, and when Senator McCain's emergency blood clot surgery forced a suspension on the vote, it gave the naysayers enough to time to make their concerns known. Apparently when McConnell tried to promise his caucus that the Medicaid funding wouldn't really go away as feared, he actually lost some of the Far Right members, killing the main plan.

So McConnell switched to a straight-up Repeal bill, bringing back one from 2015 (allowable, I guess) to vote as soon as possible. What THAT bill did was kill off all funding but kept the rules in place, which would have kicked even MORE people off health care coverage - CBO scoring had it at 32 million by 2026, with 18 million in the first year! - while forcing everyone else to pay a 100 percent increase on premiums.

Even the Moderates in the Senate - Collins especially - had to balk at that.

Where the game against Obamacare goes from here is still an open matter: As I've said repeatedly, the Republicans want their goddamn tax cuts - at the expense of the social safety net - at all hazards. But the failure here in the Senate - and the struggles earlier in the House - are highlighting the problems where the GOP have trapped themselves.

By constantly screeching for years to Repeal (and forced to offer a form of Replace), the Republicans can't turn themselves around and compromise on the existing health care system. Every offered plan has a major flaw - kicking people off coverage, which can be lethal - and nobody is willing to volunteer to give up their health care plans.

The Republicans' idea of compromise - where they insist the Democrats cave to their demands and then take the blame when it all goes to hell - is useless. The Democrats may not have explicit power right now in government being in the minority and out of the White House, but they have the ability now to say NO and stick to that. They're forcing the Republicans to deal within their own ranks - which has empowered both the Far Right AND NOW the Moderates who are punching back - and lift their own works... something the Republicans really don't want to do. Enough of them know damn well not to be holding this hand grenade when it goes off.

It does not help that this Republican Congress is trying to cope with a weak President Loser of the Popular Vote in trump. In previous times, when there was a tough piece of legislation involved, the President would make deals or offer alternatives that would placate enough members of Congress to get the job done. Obama had to to get Obamacare passed in the first place. LBJ was a fucking master at it.

But trump has almost no political capital to use. Granted, he's got his rabid fan base to scare the weaker members of the GOP. But when it comes to wheeling and dealing, he holds few favors with the major players. His current legal woes - under constant investigation for not only his Russian ties but also other scandals with his Foundation and elsewhere - doesn't give him a chance to make favors for the future (if he has one).

Making it worse is that trump is failing at reaching out: He's either tried bullying, berating, mocking those in Congress he thinks are stalling his glorious promises, or buttering up those who are not the ones he needs to win over. He's not building the back-room connections necessary between White House and the Capitol. It's not helping that his West Wing is criminally understaffed: if trump had hired enough people to massage the right Congresscritters, we'd be seeing results (granted, NOT the results we'd like...).

Update: It's worse than THAT. trump's dinner invite to "talk about the health care bill" turned into a ego-inflating talk about how France had treated him on his recent visit. The idiot cannot focus.

So what happens now?

The next major issue - one that Congress cannot avoid - is their planned budget for 2018. The proposal in the House is a massive tax cut, spending cut disaster... that may lose Far Right support from the "Freedom" Caucus because it doesn't go far enough in slashing the safety net. And this time, I don't think the House Moderates are going to accept any excuse from Ryan to back his efforts...

Keep calling, America. Call your Congresscritter, call your Senators. Remind the Republicans they have to answer for their sins, remind the Democrats to stand firm against any cut that will hurt the public.

This party ain't over.

No visible means of support and you have not seen nothing yet
Everything's stuck together
And I don't know what you expect staring into the TV set
Fighting fire with fire...
- "Burning Down the House" Talking Heads

They Can't Quit Hating Obamacare, Baby

Jeez. Just when you thought the Republicans learned their lesson not to fuck with Obama's legacy, they're right back on the "Repeal" bandwagon trying to nuke Obamacre from orbit for, what, the 97th time?

To reference David Anderson (previously Richard Mayhew when he needed a pseudonym as he worked in the HC industry) on Balloon-Juice:

In simple terms, a carrier can’t deny a hemophiliac coverage but they can charge an actuarial fair premium of $90,000 per year. A carrier can’t deny a young woman who either is or intends to become pregnant. They just don’t have to cover the prenatal or labor and delivery costs.

It is effectively a slightly modified option 3 of Cassidy-Collins where states can return to the 2009 status quo if they so actively elect to do so. If we combine a single state choosing this route and sell across state lines, it would lead the entire country’s individual market back to 2009...

From what I can tell: The Republicans in Congress are basically going to kill any coverage in health care, and they're going to try and shift the blame onto the states to get away with it.

The way David Anderson describes it, the Replacement-to-the-Replacement Bill (AHCA 2.0) is worse than the original AHCA.

Why are the Republicans even bothering?

Because somewhere in that shared reptilian brain of the party is the evil desire to wreck ANYTHING with Obama's name on it, and they want to prove they can actually do this without the party falling apart like it did two weeks ago.

Frances Langum at Crooks and Liars is in agreement:

And here's the background: the current Congress (and especially the Freedumb Caucus) is chock full of Class of 2010 and later numbnuts who have NO congressional experience when Obama wasn't president, and NO platform other than "repeal and replace" that Obamacare.

They don't know what else to do.

And this latest incarnation is just. terrible.

They are getting rid of preexisting conditions, people. Because who wants to cover sick people?

By the way, it's always been about getting rid of preexisting conditions and yielding a big tax cut for the rich...

According to Langum, the current follow-up on this is that the Freedom Caucus is stepping back from any deal on AHCA 2.0. Still, this is worrisome. The Republicans are not learning from their mistakes. They never had to before. Every time they caused damage to the nation since 2009, they've been rewarded with election wins (sans 2012). But now they don't have the excuses and scapegoats to point at anymore: they can't rely on the Democrats - Obama in the White House - to stop themselves from driving over that cliff.

Keep calling, America. Keep resisting. Make damn sure the Republican Congresscritters realize this time there are consequences for their bullshit.

And start getting worried about that fiscal cliff too. That Debt Ceiling problem is coming back and this lineup of Jokers to the Right are not focusing on a solution for that at all...