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Repeal Fails
The Republicans have failed once more to keep their long-made promise to repeal Obamacare.
John McCain – Credit: Christopher Halloran / Shutterstock.com
Published in Domestic PolicyUpdated 3:10 a.m. | In a dramatic early Friday morning vote, the Senate voted down the Republican effort to overhaul the U.S. health insurance system, 49-51, with GOP Sen. John McCain of Arizona’s dramatic “no” — to gasps in the chamber — providing the key vote to send the bill to defeat. Lobbying from top GOP leaders, McCain’s colleague from Arizona Jeff Flake, Vice President Mike Pence and a swath of Republicans were not enough to sway McCain. Pence himself spent more than 20 minutes trying to get McCain to change his mind.GOP Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine were expected to vote “no,” but Republicans were confident shortly before the vote they could get to a 50-50 tie, and bring in Pence to break it. Before he cast his “no” vote, McCain had gathered with a sizable group of jovial Democrats on the other side of the Senate chamber. He returned to the Republican side, walking right past Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
Kelli Ward – “I told you so.”
GOP Senate: “Let them eat cake.”
This is exactly correct @drewinwisconsin. The Party of “Free Markets” is scared to death of just allowing free markets to work with health care insurance..and health care itself. ” Oh my gosh people will lose insurance, we will get blamed, they will vote us out of office!” I am not voting for a spineless lizard. The Republicans will lose anyway. They might as well have gone down doing the right thing.
This may very well be Fred but the question still hangs in the air above both the House of Representatives and Senate: YOU SWORE REPEAL FOR 7 YEARS AND TOLD US YOU WERE WORKING ON NUMEROUS ALTERNATIVES, WAS ALL THAT A BALD FACED LIE!?!
What we have been witnessing since election night is nothing short of a morality play showcasing rank cowardice, exposing sickening demagoguery, and underlining their impotence. It’s pathetic. I am reminded of the words of the monk Remigio in The Name of Rose as he was being tried for witchcraft and decides to speak plainly of his sins: “In the twelve years I have lived here, I have done nothing but stuff my belly, shag my wick, and squeeze the hungry peasants for tithes!” So it is with these sons of an unknown father…
It’s easier if you just say what you think government should be doing. Most of the pushback you are getting here is coming from those who think we should have a free market system for healthcare. If we have people then with special circumstances who are not able to function in the free market, approaches for helping can be considered.
I thought I was clear in my first post, but if not, I think the government should do nothing. Get out of healthcare completely. If I were dictator I would not only repeal Obamacare but also all of the government intervention leading up to it.
My questions to you were focused on the skinny repeal bill only, nothing more.
You guys can be irrationally pessimistic if you want, but single payer won’t happen because the upper middle class will not accept higher taxes in exchange for worse health care. You guys don’t really think we live in a democracy where everyone’s opinion matters the same, do you?
My hope is that we can replace some of these elected people masquerading as Republican conservatives from whom we got sod all.
Two genuine problems:
First: No matter how well the market works, there will always be people with expensive chronic conditions who can’t afford the healthcare they need to survive/stay productive. And Republicans seem to have agreed that those people shouldn’t be left in the lurch.
The typical Republican response is “this isn’t a big deal, it’s such a small number of people with these conditions”. Well, there’s also a very small number of people who are at a real risk of malnourishment (and food is much cheaper than treating chronic conditions), yet our government has proven itself incapable of administering a food stamps program.
Do we really think it could run a welfare program 10x more complex and expensive without bankrupting the country?
Second: The market only works if everyone is on a level playing field. However, most people get their insurance from their employer, and employer-based insurance is tax-favored and regulated in many ways that make it overgenerous. The second-largest group of patients is Medicare patients, who are on a de facto single-payer system.
The free market simply can’t work as long as a majority of Americans aren’t in the free market. The problem? Most people with employer-provided insurance or Medicare don’t want to change.
I think we live in a democracy in which groups with higher turnout get more of what they want than groups with lower turnout. As it should be.
Upper-middle-class citizens vote to much higher levels than the poor, so they have oversized influence. And I agree that this means we won’t see universal single-payer anytime.
Of course, senior citizens also vote at relatively high levels, which is why we’ll also never get rid of the single-payer program known as Medicare.
Is this your opinion of McCain’s character? If this is the reason McCain voted the way he did then that would make him especially wicked. Are you suggesting he would vote to screw over the country just to create a difficulty for Trump?
Yeah, I think the line is “Why are you okay with this?”
I’m suggesting that this wasn’t the omg-life-or-death-end-of-the-republic-screw-over-the-country vote that you think it is.
So Fred allows McCain did that, but it’s no big deal.
Which has nothing to do with the quote Matt was referring to. Can you address the apparent vindictiveness assigned to McCain?
I guess I’m unclear what you’re asking.
You put forth that comment about how Donald Trump was mean to McCain presenting it as completely reasonable grounds for McCain voting against the repeal. Your comment in fact was:
When asked quite directly:
You responded with a non-sequitur:
But that doesn’t answer the question that was asked. Would McCain screw over the country just to create difficulty for Trump? (as you implied), or are you backing away from that assertion? If the former, then what does that say about John McCain? If the latter, please then clarify your reason for posting the original assertion if not to support John McCain being petty and vindictive (and by extrapolation, take yet another jab at President Trump).
John McCain: “I follow the course of a great Republican, Teddy Roosevelt, who talked about the malefactors of great wealth and gave us the estate tax.”
McCain is not a conservative. Let’s not pretend this vote was the first time this was made clear.
Not that that makes it any less frustrating. On the other hand, it doesn’t make him a lot different than many other Republicans who lie to get elected.
You can’t be that dull. You suggested McCain voted the way he did because of personal anger toward trump. Your idea suggests that McCain engaged in the most dishonorable thing a politician can do. Do you really thing McCain would betray the people of this nation over a personal grudge?
I assumed (rightly) that the question was asked in the context of the discussion we were having. You know, the one about the repeal vote. So just to clarify: no it’s not a non-sequitur.
I don’t know where I implied that McCain would “screw over the country just to create difficulty for Trump.” But just so we’re clear: No, I don’t think that. It seems really unlikely. But as I said, this wasn’t the omg-life-or-death-end-of-the-republic-screw-over-the-country vote that you think it is.
Youre just making things up, then. Go away.