Republicans cannot kill Obamacare, seek to torture it

[gotsnowgotslush]

Republicans cannot kill Obamacare, seek to torture it


Ding, dong, the zombie repeal of Obamacare remains undead

Reasons for the ugly Graham-Cassidy bill-

Old fashioned Cowboy Western scenario- Powerful robber barons (Koch brothers) shoot guns (threats of loss of campaign money, and threats of opposition from 400 Koch operatives) at feet of servants (corrupt and greedy Republicans), and tell them to dance (cobble together a successful Obamacare repeal, and cut Koch taxes.)

Koch brothers were impatient for repeal of Obamacare. Koch bros summoned the Republican congressman they bought, to Colorado Springs.

https://www.usnews.com/news/politic...ncy-conservative-network-fears-closing-window

Rep. Dave Brat, R-Va., predicted dire consequences in next year's midterm elections should his party fail to deliver on its repeated promises.

"If we don't get health care (Obamacare repealed), none of us are coming back," he said in a brief interview. "We said for seven years you're gonna repeal Obamacare. It's nowhere near repealed."

"If they don't make good on these promises ... there are going to be consequences, and quite frankly there should be," said Sean Lansing, chief operating officer for the Koch network's political arm, Americans For Prosperity.

One Texas-based donor warned Republican lawmakers that his “Dallas piggy bank” was now closed, until he saw legislative progress.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...anks-closed-republicans-healthcare-tax-reform

“Get Obamacare repealed and replaced, get tax reform passed,” said Doug Deason. “Get it done and we’ll open it (campaign donations) back up.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...anks-closed-republicans-healthcare-tax-reform

During the Monday hearing-

Hatch said he would suspend the hearing after another round of questions.

"Let's face it," he said. "We're not getting anywhere."

Closed-door meeting on Tuesday (Sept. 26)

September 26, 2017
This time, Trumpcare won't go to the floor for a vote, that is destined to fail.
"We don’t have the votes.”
- Bill Cassidy (R-LA)

Tuesday (Sept. 26). Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona shook his head and said "no" when asked about plans for a vote.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters after a closed-door luncheon in which the GOP decided not to hold the vote: "We haven't given up on changing the American health care system. We aren't going to be able to do it this week."


http://www.nola.com/national_politics/2017/09/senate_republicans_wont_vote_o.html


Senator Susan Collins of Maine, John McCain of Arizona and Rand Paul of Kentucky who said they would vote no.


Senator Susan Collins, (R- Maine)
Rejecting a cynical effort to buy her vote by providing more federal money to her home state, Collins pointed out that the future spending cuts contained in the bill would “more than offset any short-term influx of money.” “But even more important,” she went on, “if senators can adjust a funding formula over a weekend to help a single state, they could just as easily adjust that formula in the future to hurt that state.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska)
Lisa Murkowski said that the process by which the bill was presented for a vote was "lousy," citing the logistics involved. "The U.S. Senate cannot get the text of a bill on a Sunday night, then proceed to a vote just days later, with only one hearing – and especially not on an issue that is intensely personal to all of us," Murkowski wrote.

September 26, 2017

President Donald Trump attacked John McCain over his refusal to back the Republican health care bill.

Trump accused the senator of a flip-flop.


Trump was quacking on “Rick & Bubba Show,” an Alabama-based syndicated radio program.

Trump called in, on the local Alabama radio show that aired Monday, Trump had criticized McCain for his opposition to the health care bill, and at a rally in the state Friday, the president attacked him for refusing to vote to repeal Obamacare in July.

http://www.newsweek.com/trump-attac...ck-healthcare-bill-hours-after-senator-671012

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham defended GOP Sen. John McCain, against criticism from President Donald Trump


https://www.usnews.com/news/politic...sen-graham-insists-health-care-bill-isnt-dead

 

[JackLuis]

During last nights debate Grahm said he didn't want to send more money to Health Insurance Co's. and Bernie agreed, Medicare for all has a 2% overhead but commercial Insurance has 18% overhead.

 

[sr71plt]

Republicans are clearly the party in power. Sure, let them commit political society in the 2018 congressional elections with this issue.

You're not too bright on political matters, are you, Jay? Oh, that's right you're a Trump dope.

 

[sr71plt]

Two stupid posts is all you get with me, Jay. You've gone on ignore.

 

[JackLuis]

Republicans should just let is collapse. When the remaining insurance carriers can't jack up their rates any higher to cover the high loss ratio's, there won't be any insurance companies left. Once O-care implodes, the dems will get desperate. If there are any Democrats left by then...

Medicare For All - Arguably the stupidest thing Bernie has ever advocated for, and that's saying something. Anyone who believes it would actually work, should visit a VA clinic for their medical care...or better yet...Venezuela.

Here's a tip...the Federal Government doesn't solve problems...it subsidizes them.

I have had VA Vet Care for ~four years now. They are not perfect, but a hell of a lot better than the nothing, I'd get from Rethuglican block grants.

The VA can negotiate pharma prices and drugs from the VA are a lot less than from Costco.

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

On health care, the urgency confronting the GOP this week lay in special budget rules that protected the legislation from a Democratic filibuster, allowing the Republicans to pass it with just 50 votes, plus a tiebreaker from Pence, instead of the 60 often required. Those special rules expire Sept. 30, 2017

How many times have the Republicans tried to repeal Obamacare ?

(Should be over 70 times, by now.)

The Republicans pump up their excitement about repealing Obamacare. Paul Ryan and his goons played the Rocky theme.

05/04/17

Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and his GOP leadership team held what amounted to a pep rally for rank-and-file members in the Capitol basement Thursday morning as they predicted victory in their push to repeal and replace ObamaCare.

Leaders played the “Rocky” theme song as lawmakers walked into the meeting. Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) put an image of George S. Patton on the screen and read inspirational quotes from the general.

Let’s get this f--king thing done!” Rep. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.) told her colleagues, according to sources in the room.

http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/331907-gop-predicts-victory-on-obamacare-repeal-vote


May 4, 2017

Trump serves beer and prematurely celebrates the repeal of Obamacare

"Welcome to the beginning of the end of Obamacare," Vice President Mike Pence proudly bragged at the news conference in the Rose Garden, before introducing Trump.

Emperor Carrot was joined in his Rose Garden victory lap by Vice President Mike Pence, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, Medicare and Medicaid administrator Seema Verma and dozens of Republican lawmakers who rode busses from the Capitol to the White House shortly after voting.

https://www.usnews.com/news/politic...passage-of-health-care-bill-with-donald-trump


2014 tweet from President Donald Trump criticizing then-President Barack Obama's health care law has resurfaced


Donald J. Trump

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump

It’s Thursday. How many people have lost their healthcare today?

4:49 PM · Jan 9, 2014


https://www.usnews.com/news/nationa...ps-critical-2014-health-care-tweet-resurfaces

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

Who purchased the beer, and paid for it ?
The pictures taken of the Republicans,
showed them smiling with horrible glee.

No horrible glee from the Republican party this time.

No celebrating.

The leaders are a true reflection of the Death Eaters, Voldemorte's followers.


They voted, and they did not care who would die.


Andy Borowitz satire from New Yorker magazine-


September 26, 2017

We made a solemn promise to the American people that we would do everything in our power to keep the poor from living so darn long,” he said, his voice quavering. “We didn’t get it done.”

- Senator Lindsey Graham


"We may not be able to keep the poor from living longer, but we can still make them poorer."

-Speaker Paul Ryan

https://www.newyorker.com/humor/bor...eeping-poor-people-from-living-longer-is-over


Alexandra Jaffe

Alexandra Jaffe @ajjaffe

Cases upon cases of beer just rolled into the Capitol on a cart covered in a sheet. Spotted Bud Light peeking out from the sheet

1:50 PM · May 4, 2017

 

[Hypoxia]

The Gups' problem for a couple decades: making impossible promises to their base. Their mantra has been of dominance, not governance. But most Murkans detest their agenda, so they can't dominate in free and fair elections. So they gerrymander and disenfranchise and cage and otherwise push exclusion, not inclusion.

Result: The don't govern. They can't govern. Controlling both houses and POTUS and SCOTUS, they can't dominate and they can't govern. GOP runs, fucks itself.

Which won't do the Dums much good because they haven't focused on local and state politics. All those legislatures and governors didn't go away by themselves. Gups fought hard and nasty and Dums didn't. Wild animals took over the Guppy base, city council by county commission, and are gnawing at the party's establishment. Dums have skipped that reformation so far.

Hey, a parallel: Over half a millennium ago, Xian Europe was torn by religious revolution, Protestants breaking from Catholicism as Catholics had schismed from Orthodoxy earlier. Reformation and Counter-Reformation transformed and empowered Western civilization. That's where the Gups are now. Islam has been around for almost 1500 years and, despite early and evolving faction splits, hasn't undergone a Reformation. That's where the Dums are now.

Are both parties' establishment infrastructures strong enough to contain the upcoming chaos?

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

gsgs comment-

The battle was much nastier than I had imagined.

September 22, 2017


As Ms. Murkowski knows better than anyone, Alaska lives or dies on federal largess. It routinely tops the list of federal funding per capita. It receives billions in annual federal grants and billions more in defense spending. Federal money supports an estimated one-third of all the jobs and household income in the state.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke called Ms. Murkowski after her July health-care defection to let her know President Trump would be turning off the tap, and ending Alaska’s enormous opportunity to cash in on energy deregulation. The liberal press howled over this supposed “threat.” But why should the nation continue to send outsize taxpayer funds to a state that is single-handedly condemning Americans to ObamaCare?

Why, asks Strassel, should the government upgrade military bases in Alaska if Murkowski is unwilling to sign a bill that she believes would hurt people?

Threats only work if the target believes the person issuing them is completely unethical. What’s most telling about the congressional Republicans’ warning, issued via Strassel, is that it makes no distinction between legitimate and illegitimate spending. Presumably there could be some kind of neutral good-government test of spending programs that distinguishes between those with merit and those without. Strassel just tosses them all — military-base upgrades, which she presumably considers merited, and bridges to nowhere, which she presumably does not — into the same category.

This threat would be worthless if Murkowski believed the congressional Republicans would evaluate spending programs that benefit Alaska on their merits. But that possibility is clearly so naive Strassel does not even bother to deny it. Strassel just straight-up operates from the assumption that of course completely unrelated programs will be either approved or canceled on the basis of political blackmail.

Full article "Republicans to Murkowski: Nice State You Have There, Shame If Something Were to Happen To It"
- Jonathan Chait

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligence...ten-alaska-if-murkowski-turns-down-bribe.html

 

[Hypoxia]

Full article "Republicans to Murkowski: Nice State You Have There, Shame If Something Were to Happen To It"
- Jonathan Chait

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligence...ten-alaska-if-murkowski-turns-down-bribe.html

That's the part of legislative sausage-making we don't want to watch -- but now, we must. The bribes and threats and horse-trading and finessing principles for pork and all that shit.

This usually happens behind the scenes. The Gup morons have brought it out in public, where Murkowsli can take a heroic stand and get re-elected, which is of course all that matters. Gotta say, I've seen anthills more intelligently organized than the Gups. They can't govern (which requires compromise); they can't even threaten. All hat, no horse.

 

[Iceprincess12]

Fingers crossed that waterboarding makes a comeback.