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Friday’s the Big Day for AHCA
This is a preview from Friday morning’s Daily Shot newsletter. Subscribe here free of charge.
The House of Representatives was supposed to vote Thursday on the AHCA, the Republican replacement bill for Obamacare. So what happened? Did it pass? As you can probably tell from our header, the vote was postponed. This gave Republicans more time to negotiate changes to the bill.
And negotiate they did. Thursday evening, House Freedom Caucus members met with Paul Ryan, as well as Reince Priebus and Steve Bannon. Despite changes to the bill, no grand agreement was forthcoming. Matters were made worse when the Congressional Budget Office reported that the current changes would not decrease the number of projected uninsured under the new plan, and that the deficit would increase.
As of Thursday afternoon, 37 House Republicans had said they weren’t voting for the bill. That’s unfortunate for proponents, because Democrats are unified in their opposition and House leadership can only afford 22 defections.
Nevertheless, the bill is moving forward. President Trump told everyone Thursday that he was done negotiating, and if Republicans don’t pass this bill, he’s just gonna move on to other stuff. So the plan is, win or lose, to vote on it sometime Friday.
This is a preview from Friday morning’s Daily Shot newsletter. Subscribe here free of charge.
Published in General
Technically, that’s true. Actually…
In other words, they voted informally, off the record. Now Republicans will return to negotiating off the record so that voters don’t interfere in the debates of their representatives.
Why did they keep that stupid 5X / 3X premium ratio in? Young people are stupid to buy standard health insurance with this model. Just another thing that favors the group / job model.
The USSR already tried stupid crap like this.
Subsidize old people right out of the treasury. That is the way to do it.
Why has this come down to Politically Forced Universal Coverage or not? How did this happen?
The stupid GOP plan won’t work unless you force everyone to buy it.
I hear people saying this is a binary choice, this or Obamacare stays. I am only surprised this isn’t being called the Flight 93 Health Care Act.
Obama justified his pen and phone on the basis the Congress didn’t work with him. I guess Trump does the same. Obama’s “the time for talking is over” is Trump’s “done negotiating”. I’d say leave Obamacare, it’s dying. The Republican plan revives it enough to take over ownership in time for the 2018 midterms.
I certainly hope the 37 remain on the no side of the equation. I’m almost at the point I don’t care what they do. It’s going to be bad either way financially and systemically. I just plan on living until I get sick and die like they used to. Worrying about health insurance probably takes 10 years off your life anyway.
I said before single payer wouldn’t surprise me under either party, and it is looking more like that is going to happen.
No one wants to pay 1/6 of their income on health care, and yet that is how much of the economy it costs. The new normal of low growth is probably here to stay as long as citizens and politicians try to make someone else pay for health care including the costs that are doable.
I like to pride myself with the notion that I know a bit more about the US Constitution and the US federal legislative process than the average Canuckistani (admittedly, a very low bar), but I gotta admit that the rhetoric from yesterday has left me a little bit stumped.
Why should it matter one jot if the President doesn’t want to participate in the negotiation process? His only duty is to sign the damned thing at the end of it all.
If Congress wants to take its sweet time putting a bill together, isn’t that Congress’ prerogative?
Is Trump saying he’ll veto any bill that doesn’t have his fingerprints all over it, regardless of the merits of the bill?