Here's why Trump should have demanded a roll call vote on the ACHA

[usmbguest5318]

It was clear to me sometime this past week that the ACHA was doomed. The signs that longtime locals are used to seeing -- Congressional staffers busier than a one-armed paper hanger to name one -- when "something's not right" were all over the place. Be that as it may, though I was pretty sure the ACHA would go down in flames, I didn't get a sense that Trump would back off from wanting a roll call vote on it anyway. I don't think he should have done that.

One aspect of the aspect ACHA's non-passage -- a material one, but not the biggest one, per se -- is that there were two camps of Republican who had to be satisfied: moderate Republicans (MR) and Freedom Caucus Republicans (FCs). The moderates can be worked with, negotiated with and they know when to take a good deal that may not be an ideal deal. The FCs don't understand that at all. Technically there is a third group -- the Republicans who'll go along with pretty much anything so long as it's backed by Republican leadership -- but they don't really matter because unless the thing being pushed is tantamount to infanticide, they won't let the party down no matter how extreme or moderate a proposition be.

Come Friday afternoon, the ACHA had been tweaked to better suit the FC folks. They'd demanded concessions, got them and then pushed for more and rather than taking what they could, they played "all or nothing."

Trump should have forced them to go on record so he can put the screws to them later when he senses-up and takes a bipartisan approach that includes a coalition of MRs, conservative to moderate Dems,and the party loyalists. He also needs the FCs to be on record so they can be sent home come the midterm elections.

The fact of the matter is that the FCs, with their inflexibility, screwed a host of groups/goals:

• The American people as a whole because there are parts of O-care that do indeed need "fixing."
  
  This is the group of citizens includes those who don't get their insurance via O-care and its exchanges, but who do indirectly "pay" by dint of the flaws having a national economic impact. I'm in this group. I'm not going to be materially "put out" whether the ACA gets fixed or not, but I'd sooner see it fixed than not fixed. I don't see fixing it as the most important thing we need to do, but Republicans seem to think it is, so fine. I'm all for fixing it, so long as it's done so as to prioritize low and middle income people actually having health insurance. (I can discuss what I think should be done re: O-care/health insurance, but here isn't the place for that.)
  
  I'm as much as one can be an advocate of trying something, seeing what's wrong with it and making incremental adjustments until it's working right. Obama "got the ball rolling" in that regard by enacting O-care, and for all it's imperfections, he's the only one who's been able to do that. It's a start and Obama deserves props for that. It's a hell of a lot easier to build on something that's at least functioning at the main thing it's supposed to do, and doing exactly that is what we're currently called to do. It's also what the FCs are a major impediment to achieving.
  
• The GOP tax and budget agenda. The fact of the matter is that for however horrible the ACHA be, it's passage was critical to the GOP tax reform and tax rate objectives and Trump's budget austerity proposals. Not passing it means that avoiding ~$600B in federal spending will not be possible, and because it won't be, the GOP's tax reform measures won't happen. Additionally personal income tax reduction won't be happening as promised; however, corporate tax cuts likely will (no surprise). Lastly, the defense spending increases won't be anything near what Trump proposed.
  
  People wondered why the ACHA was first among the major proposals tacked. All those other things depended on it, and the FCs knew that, or at least they were told as much. Whether they, like typically intransigent obstructionists, refused to believe what they were told is unclear to me.
• Low to low middle income folks. These folks were going to be screwed if the ACHA passed, and some of them -- the same ones as now -- remain screwed as their penury exposes them further to the pinch of premium proliferation and prideful political pandering. The FCs deserve to be identified and sent packing solely for their disregard and lack of empathy for the least among us.
  
  After all, of people in these segments of our society, if they don't at least have their good health, they have little chance of boosting their livelihoods. We've seen that before when our nation literally discarded the opportunity to realise the full potential of some twelve to twenty percent of the nation's population. I don't have "the answer" for just how far we go to enable poor to low-middle income -- that's a very difficult question to answer -- but I do know there are too many people in those segments to risk their good health by reducing their ability to obtain health insurance, thus healthcare, yet that's exactly what the FCs were and remain willing to do. Their call to let O-care collapse -- a grossly irresponsible thing to let or actively make happen, for only upper income people will receive healthcare if that happens -- is an indication of as much.

Given the FCs refusal to collaborate to a successful outcome of any sort, even with the members of their own party, they need to go. In order for them to be sent packing, it's important to know which of them stood in the way of at least something, even something that, like O-care, might yet need repairs, happening. We know who's in the FC. We don't know which of them were part of the problem, part of the obstructionism, and which of them were more reasonable. To find out, we needed them to vote on the bill so that every single person in their district would know just what's what.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Trump has no right to ask for a roll call vote.

That prerogative belongs to the House Speaker.

 

[JoeB131]

Here's the real reason why Trump doesn't want to have a roll call vote.

Roll calls would require designating "winners" and "Loser" and trump never wants to be thought of as a "loser".

 

[usmbguest5318]

Trump has no right to ask for a roll call vote.

That prerogative belongs to the House Speaker.

Oh, he can ask for one. He just has no ability to make one happen.

 

[HenryBHough]

Trump could ask for a roll call vote and it could be denied. But the denial and those who brought it about might well have an ever more explosive effect that would the vote itself. Mid-terms are coming and those standing in the way of the clean-out Americans demanded in November are going to pay a price. Not in the mid-terms; rather in the very expensive primaries leading up to them.

 

[OldLady]

I have a dumb question: Why did Ryan "pull" the vote rather than have it voted on and defeated? Is there some kind of rule that Congress cannot vote on the same bill twice or something?

 

[JoeB131]

Trump could ask for a roll call vote and it could be denied. But the denial and those who brought it about might well have an ever more explosive effect that would the vote itself. Mid-terms are coming and those standing in the way of the clean-out Americans demanded in November are going to pay a price. Not in the mid-terms; rather in the very expensive primaries leading up to them.

I'd be more than happy if you guys nominated nuts in the primaries.. just makes them easier to beat in the general.

 

[usmbguest5318]

I have a dumb question: Why did Ryan "pull" the vote rather than have it voted on and defeated? Is there some kind of rule that Congress cannot vote on the same bill twice or something?

The short answer is that the bill was pulled because of the optics of it not passing by a fairly large margin. Purely political strategy. Were the bill to have been voted on and not pass, that happening would have given leverage to the opposition, most notably leverage against the individuals who voted for it. Pulling the bill and not voting provides deniability to all the GOP Representatives, even though we know there are at least some ~30 of them who opposed the bill.

No, there is no such rule.

 

[Freewill]

It was clear to me sometime this past week that the ACHA was doomed. The signs that longtime locals are used to seeing -- Congressional staffers busier than a one-armed paper hanger to name one -- when "something's not right" were all over the place. Be that as it may, though I was pretty sure the ACHA would go down in flames, I didn't get a sense that Trump would back off from wanting a roll call vote on it anyway. I don't think he should have done that.

One aspect of the aspect ACHA's non-passage -- a material one, but not the biggest one, per se -- is that there were two camps of Republican who had to be satisfied: moderate Republicans (MR) and Freedom Caucus Republicans (FCs). The moderates can be worked with, negotiated with and they know when to take a good deal that may not be an ideal deal. The FCs don't understand that at all. Technically there is a third group -- the Republicans who'll go along with pretty much anything so long as it's backed by Republican leadership -- but they don't really matter because unless the thing being pushed is tantamount to infanticide, they won't let the party down no matter how extreme or moderate a proposition be.

Come Friday afternoon, the ACHA had been tweaked to better suit the FC folks. They'd demanded concessions, got them and then pushed for more and rather than taking what they could, they played "all or nothing."

Trump should have forced them to go on record so he can put the screws to them later when he senses-up and takes a bipartisan approach that includes a coalition of MRs, conservative to moderate Dems,and the party loyalists. He also needs the FCs to be on record so they can be sent home come the midterm elections.

The fact of the matter is that the FCs, with their inflexibility, screwed a host of groups/goals:

• The American people as a whole because there are parts of O-care that do indeed need "fixing."
  
  This is the group of citizens includes those who don't get their insurance via O-care and its exchanges, but who do indirectly "pay" by dint of the flaws having a national economic impact. I'm in this group. I'm not going to be materially "put out" whether the ACA gets fixed or not, but I'd sooner see it fixed than not fixed. I don't see fixing it as the most important thing we need to do, but Republicans seem to think it is, so fine. I'm all for fixing it, so long as it's done so as to prioritize low and middle income people actually having health insurance. (I can discuss what I think should be done re: O-care/health insurance, but here isn't the place for that.)
  
  I'm as much as one can be an advocate of trying something, seeing what's wrong with it and making incremental adjustments until it's working right. Obama "got the ball rolling" in that regard by enacting O-care, and for all it's imperfections, he's the only one who's been able to do that. It's a start and Obama deserves props for that. It's a hell of a lot easier to build on something that's at least functioning at the main thing it's supposed to do, and doing exactly that is what we're currently called to do. It's also what the FCs are a major impediment to achieving.
  
• The GOP tax and budget agenda. The fact of the matter is that for however horrible the ACHA be, it's passage was critical to the GOP tax reform and tax rate objectives and Trump's budget austerity proposals. Not passing it means that avoiding ~$600B in federal spending will not be possible, and because it won't be, the GOP's tax reform measures won't happen. Additionally personal income tax reduction won't be happening as promised; however, corporate tax cuts likely will (no surprise). Lastly, the defense spending increases won't be anything near what Trump proposed.
  
  People wondered why the ACHA was first among the major proposals tacked. All those other things depended on it, and the FCs knew that, or at least they were told as much. Whether they, like typically intransigent obstructionists, refused to believe what they were told is unclear to me.
• Low to low middle income folks. These folks were going to be screwed if the ACHA passed, and some of them -- the same ones as now -- remain screwed as their penury exposes them further to the pinch of premium proliferation and prideful political pandering. The FCs deserve to be identified and sent packing solely for their disregard and lack of empathy for the least among us.
  
  After all, of people in these segments of our society, if they don't at least have their good health, they have little chance of boosting their livelihoods. We've seen that before when our nation literally discarded the opportunity to realise the full potential of some twelve to twenty percent of the nation's population. I don't have "the answer" for just how far we go to enable poor to low-middle income -- that's a very difficult question to answer -- but I do know there are too many people in those segments to risk their good health by reducing their ability to obtain health insurance, thus healthcare, yet that's exactly what the FCs were and remain willing to do. Their call to let O-care collapse -- a grossly irresponsible thing to let or actively make happen, for only upper income people will receive healthcare if that happens -- is an indication of as much.

Given the FCs refusal to collaborate to a successful outcome of any sort, even with the members of their own party, they need to go. In order for them to be sent packing, it's important to know which of them stood in the way of at least something, even something that, like O-care, might yet need repairs, happening. We know who's in the FC. We don't know which of them were part of the problem, part of the obstructionism, and which of them were more reasonable. To find out, we needed them to vote on the bill so that every single person in their district would know just what's what.

What I don't understand is why does it end? He could have admitted to a set back but continued on. He didn't have to get it done in 60 days, take a year if he has to but do something ACA is still a POS that is going to bankrupt middle America.

I just think that the medical/industrial complex that Obama created is just too powerful.

 

[usmbguest5318]

It was clear to me sometime this past week that the ACHA was doomed. The signs that longtime locals are used to seeing -- Congressional staffers busier than a one-armed paper hanger to name one -- when "something's not right" were all over the place. Be that as it may, though I was pretty sure the ACHA would go down in flames, I didn't get a sense that Trump would back off from wanting a roll call vote on it anyway. I don't think he should have done that.

One aspect of the aspect ACHA's non-passage -- a material one, but not the biggest one, per se -- is that there were two camps of Republican who had to be satisfied: moderate Republicans (MR) and Freedom Caucus Republicans (FCs). The moderates can be worked with, negotiated with and they know when to take a good deal that may not be an ideal deal. The FCs don't understand that at all. Technically there is a third group -- the Republicans who'll go along with pretty much anything so long as it's backed by Republican leadership -- but they don't really matter because unless the thing being pushed is tantamount to infanticide, they won't let the party down no matter how extreme or moderate a proposition be.

Come Friday afternoon, the ACHA had been tweaked to better suit the FC folks. They'd demanded concessions, got them and then pushed for more and rather than taking what they could, they played "all or nothing."

Trump should have forced them to go on record so he can put the screws to them later when he senses-up and takes a bipartisan approach that includes a coalition of MRs, conservative to moderate Dems,and the party loyalists. He also needs the FCs to be on record so they can be sent home come the midterm elections.

The fact of the matter is that the FCs, with their inflexibility, screwed a host of groups/goals:

• The American people as a whole because there are parts of O-care that do indeed need "fixing."
  
  This is the group of citizens includes those who don't get their insurance via O-care and its exchanges, but who do indirectly "pay" by dint of the flaws having a national economic impact. I'm in this group. I'm not going to be materially "put out" whether the ACA gets fixed or not, but I'd sooner see it fixed than not fixed. I don't see fixing it as the most important thing we need to do, but Republicans seem to think it is, so fine. I'm all for fixing it, so long as it's done so as to prioritize low and middle income people actually having health insurance. (I can discuss what I think should be done re: O-care/health insurance, but here isn't the place for that.)
  
  I'm as much as one can be an advocate of trying something, seeing what's wrong with it and making incremental adjustments until it's working right. Obama "got the ball rolling" in that regard by enacting O-care, and for all it's imperfections, he's the only one who's been able to do that. It's a start and Obama deserves props for that. It's a hell of a lot easier to build on something that's at least functioning at the main thing it's supposed to do, and doing exactly that is what we're currently called to do. It's also what the FCs are a major impediment to achieving.
  
• The GOP tax and budget agenda. The fact of the matter is that for however horrible the ACHA be, it's passage was critical to the GOP tax reform and tax rate objectives and Trump's budget austerity proposals. Not passing it means that avoiding ~$600B in federal spending will not be possible, and because it won't be, the GOP's tax reform measures won't happen. Additionally personal income tax reduction won't be happening as promised; however, corporate tax cuts likely will (no surprise). Lastly, the defense spending increases won't be anything near what Trump proposed.
  
  People wondered why the ACHA was first among the major proposals tacked. All those other things depended on it, and the FCs knew that, or at least they were told as much. Whether they, like typically intransigent obstructionists, refused to believe what they were told is unclear to me.
• Low to low middle income folks. These folks were going to be screwed if the ACHA passed, and some of them -- the same ones as now -- remain screwed as their penury exposes them further to the pinch of premium proliferation and prideful political pandering. The FCs deserve to be identified and sent packing solely for their disregard and lack of empathy for the least among us.
  
  After all, of people in these segments of our society, if they don't at least have their good health, they have little chance of boosting their livelihoods. We've seen that before when our nation literally discarded the opportunity to realise the full potential of some twelve to twenty percent of the nation's population. I don't have "the answer" for just how far we go to enable poor to low-middle income -- that's a very difficult question to answer -- but I do know there are too many people in those segments to risk their good health by reducing their ability to obtain health insurance, thus healthcare, yet that's exactly what the FCs were and remain willing to do. Their call to let O-care collapse -- a grossly irresponsible thing to let or actively make happen, for only upper income people will receive healthcare if that happens -- is an indication of as much.

Given the FCs refusal to collaborate to a successful outcome of any sort, even with the members of their own party, they need to go. In order for them to be sent packing, it's important to know which of them stood in the way of at least something, even something that, like O-care, might yet need repairs, happening. We know who's in the FC. We don't know which of them were part of the problem, part of the obstructionism, and which of them were more reasonable. To find out, we needed them to vote on the bill so that every single person in their district would know just what's what.

What I don't understand is why does it end? He could have admitted to a set back but continued on. He didn't have to get it done in 60 days, take a year if he has to but do something ACA is still a POS that is going to bankrupt middle America.

I just think that the medical/industrial complex that Obama created is just too powerful.

What I don't understand is why does it end? He could have admitted to a set back but continued on.

I have to agree with you on that. The fact of Obama having gotten O-care passed demonstrably proves that it's possible to get health insurance legislation passed.

Though I think it's pathetic that the GOP didn't have a high quality bill ready to go, I am more than able to tell that Trump's supporters and other grassroots Republicans would be no less content were the GOP to have taken 1.9 years to pass a high quality bill than they would were a crappy one passed last week. All voters -- Dems and Reps -- truly, IMO, don't care which party produces a high quality solution, so if it took the GOP nearly two years of hard work to make that happen, that's what they should have done to begin with.

I think the GOP, and Trump in particular, has consistently "aimed low" in terms of resolving the most important issues facing the U.S. and its citizens. That doesn't sit well with me at all. I'm one of those folks who knows that what one aims for defines the upper limit of what one will actually achieve.

 

[rightwinger]

It was clear to me sometime this past week that the ACHA was doomed. The signs that longtime locals are used to seeing -- Congressional staffers busier than a one-armed paper hanger to name one -- when "something's not right" were all over the place. Be that as it may, though I was pretty sure the ACHA would go down in flames, I didn't get a sense that Trump would back off from wanting a roll call vote on it anyway. I don't think he should have done that.

One aspect of the aspect ACHA's non-passage -- a material one, but not the biggest one, per se -- is that there were two camps of Republican who had to be satisfied: moderate Republicans (MR) and Freedom Caucus Republicans (FCs). The moderates can be worked with, negotiated with and they know when to take a good deal that may not be an ideal deal. The FCs don't understand that at all. Technically there is a third group -- the Republicans who'll go along with pretty much anything so long as it's backed by Republican leadership -- but they don't really matter because unless the thing being pushed is tantamount to infanticide, they won't let the party down no matter how extreme or moderate a proposition be.

Come Friday afternoon, the ACHA had been tweaked to better suit the FC folks. They'd demanded concessions, got them and then pushed for more and rather than taking what they could, they played "all or nothing."

Trump should have forced them to go on record so he can put the screws to them later when he senses-up and takes a bipartisan approach that includes a coalition of MRs, conservative to moderate Dems,and the party loyalists. He also needs the FCs to be on record so they can be sent home come the midterm elections.

The fact of the matter is that the FCs, with their inflexibility, screwed a host of groups/goals:

• The American people as a whole because there are parts of O-care that do indeed need "fixing."
  
  This is the group of citizens includes those who don't get their insurance via O-care and its exchanges, but who do indirectly "pay" by dint of the flaws having a national economic impact. I'm in this group. I'm not going to be materially "put out" whether the ACA gets fixed or not, but I'd sooner see it fixed than not fixed. I don't see fixing it as the most important thing we need to do, but Republicans seem to think it is, so fine. I'm all for fixing it, so long as it's done so as to prioritize low and middle income people actually having health insurance. (I can discuss what I think should be done re: O-care/health insurance, but here isn't the place for that.)
  
  I'm as much as one can be an advocate of trying something, seeing what's wrong with it and making incremental adjustments until it's working right. Obama "got the ball rolling" in that regard by enacting O-care, and for all it's imperfections, he's the only one who's been able to do that. It's a start and Obama deserves props for that. It's a hell of a lot easier to build on something that's at least functioning at the main thing it's supposed to do, and doing exactly that is what we're currently called to do. It's also what the FCs are a major impediment to achieving.
  
• The GOP tax and budget agenda. The fact of the matter is that for however horrible the ACHA be, it's passage was critical to the GOP tax reform and tax rate objectives and Trump's budget austerity proposals. Not passing it means that avoiding ~$600B in federal spending will not be possible, and because it won't be, the GOP's tax reform measures won't happen. Additionally personal income tax reduction won't be happening as promised; however, corporate tax cuts likely will (no surprise). Lastly, the defense spending increases won't be anything near what Trump proposed.
  
  People wondered why the ACHA was first among the major proposals tacked. All those other things depended on it, and the FCs knew that, or at least they were told as much. Whether they, like typically intransigent obstructionists, refused to believe what they were told is unclear to me.
• Low to low middle income folks. These folks were going to be screwed if the ACHA passed, and some of them -- the same ones as now -- remain screwed as their penury exposes them further to the pinch of premium proliferation and prideful political pandering. The FCs deserve to be identified and sent packing solely for their disregard and lack of empathy for the least among us.
  
  After all, of people in these segments of our society, if they don't at least have their good health, they have little chance of boosting their livelihoods. We've seen that before when our nation literally discarded the opportunity to realise the full potential of some twelve to twenty percent of the nation's population. I don't have "the answer" for just how far we go to enable poor to low-middle income -- that's a very difficult question to answer -- but I do know there are too many people in those segments to risk their good health by reducing their ability to obtain health insurance, thus healthcare, yet that's exactly what the FCs were and remain willing to do. Their call to let O-care collapse -- a grossly irresponsible thing to let or actively make happen, for only upper income people will receive healthcare if that happens -- is an indication of as much.

Given the FCs refusal to collaborate to a successful outcome of any sort, even with the members of their own party, they need to go. In order for them to be sent packing, it's important to know which of them stood in the way of at least something, even something that, like O-care, might yet need repairs, happening. We know who's in the FC. We don't know which of them were part of the problem, part of the obstructionism, and which of them were more reasonable. To find out, we needed them to vote on the bill so that every single person in their district would know just what's what.

The Freedom Caucus only knows how to say...NO
NO is easy

They have no idea how to say YES. Yes takes compromise which is viewed as defeat

 

[usmbguest5318]

I just think that the medical/industrial complex that Obama created is just too powerful.

Obama and O-care didn't create that.

Insurance companies of all types have long been insanely powerful because of their role in the U.S. economy. Their power derives from the way they make the vast majority of their money: by investing policyholders' premiums in the world's financial markets. After asset management firms, insurance companies are the largest block of institutional investors around. They less they have to invest, the less money there is available in capital markets. Their funds reserve requirements [1] keep banks and other lenders flush with cash that can be lent to people who need money to buy "whatever." The remaining money they invest in stocks, bonds, real estate, commodities, etc. provides huge shares of the capital that enables companies to finance building all sorts of things -- factories, office buildings, productive infrastructure, etc.

Now, one can try to "sock it to" insurance companies and enact policy that harms their bottom line. That's a choice one can make, but in doing so, one had better be well aware at a very detailed level just how the policy is going to hit their bottom line and what ripple effect that's going to have on the economy as a whole.

For instance, we've heard in the news about various companies opting to build new plants in the U.S. Well, they won't build them without borrowing money (loans or bonds) or issuing stock to do so. "Mary Main Street" may want to open a business and hire a couple people. Odds are she can't do that without a business loan. Someone wants to buy a house and needs a loan. The bottom line of insurance companies affects all of those things. (No, nobody can directly tie, say, Humana's bottom line to "Mary Main Street's" business loan. Doing so isn't the point here.)

Because insurance companies have the place they do in the economy, because so many business leaders know they are dependent not on any specific insurance company but rather on the insurance industry as a whole, they are willing to side with insurance companies. They don't want to see reduced their access to money.

You can like that. You can hate it. You can wish it weren't so or think something else. Whatever it be you and everyone else thinks of it, we all must face it and account for it in any health insurance provisions we might propose. What that means is that while one can legislate and regulate against insurance companies themselves, one cannot curtail the access to cash that businesses and individuals enjoy as a result of the insurance companies. Put another way, it means that if one is going to crush insurance companies or otherwise weaken their profitability, one must by some other means make their cash available in the market.


Note:

1. Aetna alone had 2015 "top line" (gross) revenue of 60.33B; thus ~$7.2B in cash accounts somewhere. You'll find the insurance industry 2015 bottom line here. It was some $690B, and $350B of that is life and health alone. The now failed AHCA was hoped to provide ~$330B in savings to the federal gov't.

 

[usmbguest5318]

It was clear to me sometime this past week that the ACHA was doomed. The signs that longtime locals are used to seeing -- Congressional staffers busier than a one-armed paper hanger to name one -- when "something's not right" were all over the place. Be that as it may, though I was pretty sure the ACHA would go down in flames, I didn't get a sense that Trump would back off from wanting a roll call vote on it anyway. I don't think he should have done that.

One aspect of the aspect ACHA's non-passage -- a material one, but not the biggest one, per se -- is that there were two camps of Republican who had to be satisfied: moderate Republicans (MR) and Freedom Caucus Republicans (FCs). The moderates can be worked with, negotiated with and they know when to take a good deal that may not be an ideal deal. The FCs don't understand that at all. Technically there is a third group -- the Republicans who'll go along with pretty much anything so long as it's backed by Republican leadership -- but they don't really matter because unless the thing being pushed is tantamount to infanticide, they won't let the party down no matter how extreme or moderate a proposition be.

Come Friday afternoon, the ACHA had been tweaked to better suit the FC folks. They'd demanded concessions, got them and then pushed for more and rather than taking what they could, they played "all or nothing."

Trump should have forced them to go on record so he can put the screws to them later when he senses-up and takes a bipartisan approach that includes a coalition of MRs, conservative to moderate Dems,and the party loyalists. He also needs the FCs to be on record so they can be sent home come the midterm elections.

The fact of the matter is that the FCs, with their inflexibility, screwed a host of groups/goals:

• The American people as a whole because there are parts of O-care that do indeed need "fixing."
  
  This is the group of citizens includes those who don't get their insurance via O-care and its exchanges, but who do indirectly "pay" by dint of the flaws having a national economic impact. I'm in this group. I'm not going to be materially "put out" whether the ACA gets fixed or not, but I'd sooner see it fixed than not fixed. I don't see fixing it as the most important thing we need to do, but Republicans seem to think it is, so fine. I'm all for fixing it, so long as it's done so as to prioritize low and middle income people actually having health insurance. (I can discuss what I think should be done re: O-care/health insurance, but here isn't the place for that.)
  
  I'm as much as one can be an advocate of trying something, seeing what's wrong with it and making incremental adjustments until it's working right. Obama "got the ball rolling" in that regard by enacting O-care, and for all it's imperfections, he's the only one who's been able to do that. It's a start and Obama deserves props for that. It's a hell of a lot easier to build on something that's at least functioning at the main thing it's supposed to do, and doing exactly that is what we're currently called to do. It's also what the FCs are a major impediment to achieving.
  
• The GOP tax and budget agenda. The fact of the matter is that for however horrible the ACHA be, it's passage was critical to the GOP tax reform and tax rate objectives and Trump's budget austerity proposals. Not passing it means that avoiding ~$600B in federal spending will not be possible, and because it won't be, the GOP's tax reform measures won't happen. Additionally personal income tax reduction won't be happening as promised; however, corporate tax cuts likely will (no surprise). Lastly, the defense spending increases won't be anything near what Trump proposed.
  
  People wondered why the ACHA was first among the major proposals tacked. All those other things depended on it, and the FCs knew that, or at least they were told as much. Whether they, like typically intransigent obstructionists, refused to believe what they were told is unclear to me.
• Low to low middle income folks. These folks were going to be screwed if the ACHA passed, and some of them -- the same ones as now -- remain screwed as their penury exposes them further to the pinch of premium proliferation and prideful political pandering. The FCs deserve to be identified and sent packing solely for their disregard and lack of empathy for the least among us.
  
  After all, of people in these segments of our society, if they don't at least have their good health, they have little chance of boosting their livelihoods. We've seen that before when our nation literally discarded the opportunity to realise the full potential of some twelve to twenty percent of the nation's population. I don't have "the answer" for just how far we go to enable poor to low-middle income -- that's a very difficult question to answer -- but I do know there are too many people in those segments to risk their good health by reducing their ability to obtain health insurance, thus healthcare, yet that's exactly what the FCs were and remain willing to do. Their call to let O-care collapse -- a grossly irresponsible thing to let or actively make happen, for only upper income people will receive healthcare if that happens -- is an indication of as much.

Given the FCs refusal to collaborate to a successful outcome of any sort, even with the members of their own party, they need to go. In order for them to be sent packing, it's important to know which of them stood in the way of at least something, even something that, like O-care, might yet need repairs, happening. We know who's in the FC. We don't know which of them were part of the problem, part of the obstructionism, and which of them were more reasonable. To find out, we needed them to vote on the bill so that every single person in their district would know just what's what.

The Freedom Caucus only knows how to say...NO
NO is easy

They have no idea how to say YES. Yes takes compromise which is viewed as defeat

Yes takes compromise which is viewed as defeat

I suppose compromise is viewed as a defeat.

IMO, what "yes" takes is a quality "product" of some measure to begin with. That's what they -- FCs, MRs, Dems, and Trump -- never produced.

The sad reality of politics is that, mostly, it's about as quickly as possible producing a subpar "product" and convincing people that it's actually something worth having. Anyone can see that is so. Were it not so, people would approach it by rolling up their sleeves, working together and producing policies that work well for at least 80% of the population.

Businesses, even competing ones, can unite and do that because there's something tangible in the offing: money. With policymaking, the only thing the actors who make the policies have to gain is power. Power, however, unlike money, is a zero-sum thing. Power shared with others is power one no longer retains and controls. On top of that, power is more ephemeral than is money; thus power given up willfully, or lost, is harder to regain that is money given up or lost. Politics thus becomes about retaining power, not enacting optimal policies.

 

[Freewill]

I just think that the medical/industrial complex that Obama created is just too powerful.

Obama and O-care didn't create that.

Insurance companies of all types have long been insanely powerful because of their role in the U.S. economy. Their power derives from the way they make the vast majority of their money: by investing policyholders' premiums in the world's financial markets. After asset management firms, insurance companies are the largest block of institutional investors around. They less they have to invest, the less money there is available in capital markets. Their funds reserve requirements [1] keep banks and other lenders flush with cash that can be lent to people who need money to buy "whatever." The remaining money they invest in stocks, bonds, real estate, commodities, etc. provides huge shares of the capital that enables companies to finance building all sorts of things -- factories, office buildings, productive infrastructure, etc.

Now, one can try to "sock it to" insurance companies and enact policy that harms their bottom line. That's a choice one can make, but in doing so, one had better be well aware at a very detailed level just how the policy is going to hit their bottom line and what ripple effect that's going to have on the economy as a whole.

For instance, we've heard in the news about various companies opting to build new plants in the U.S. Well, they won't build them without borrowing money (loans or bonds) or issuing stock to do so. "Mary Main Street" may want to open a business and hire a couple people. Odds are she can't do that without a business loan. Someone wants to buy a house and needs a loan. The bottom line of insurance companies affects all of those things. (No, nobody can directly tie, say, Humana's bottom line to "Mary Main Street's" business loan. Doing so isn't the point here.)

Because insurance companies have the place they do in the economy, because so many business leaders know they are dependent not on any specific insurance company but rather on the insurance industry as a whole, they are willing to side with insurance companies. They don't want to see reduced their access to money.

You can like that. You can hate it. You can wish it weren't so or think something else. Whatever it be you and everyone else thinks of it, we all must face it and account for it in any health insurance provisions we might propose. What that means is that while one can legislate and regulate against insurance companies themselves, one cannot curtail the access to cash that businesses and individuals enjoy as a result of the insurance companies. Put another way, it means that if one is going to crush insurance companies or otherwise weaken their profitability, one must by some other means make their cash available in the market.


Note:

1. Aetna alone had 2015 "top line" (gross) revenue of 60.33B; thus ~$7.2B in cash accounts somewhere. You'll find the insurance industry 2015 bottom line here. It was some $690B, and $350B of that is life and health alone. The now failed AHCA was hoped to provide ~$330B in savings to the federal gov't.

I call it the medical-industrial complex they no more gives a crap about your or me, it is the bottom line that matters. Owning Congress certainly will protect their interests.

 

[usmbguest5318]

I just think that the medical/industrial complex that Obama created is just too powerful.

Obama and O-care didn't create that.

Insurance companies of all types have long been insanely powerful because of their role in the U.S. economy. Their power derives from the way they make the vast majority of their money: by investing policyholders' premiums in the world's financial markets. After asset management firms, insurance companies are the largest block of institutional investors around. They less they have to invest, the less money there is available in capital markets. Their funds reserve requirements [1] keep banks and other lenders flush with cash that can be lent to people who need money to buy "whatever." The remaining money they invest in stocks, bonds, real estate, commodities, etc. provides huge shares of the capital that enables companies to finance building all sorts of things -- factories, office buildings, productive infrastructure, etc.

Now, one can try to "sock it to" insurance companies and enact policy that harms their bottom line. That's a choice one can make, but in doing so, one had better be well aware at a very detailed level just how the policy is going to hit their bottom line and what ripple effect that's going to have on the economy as a whole.

For instance, we've heard in the news about various companies opting to build new plants in the U.S. Well, they won't build them without borrowing money (loans or bonds) or issuing stock to do so. "Mary Main Street" may want to open a business and hire a couple people. Odds are she can't do that without a business loan. Someone wants to buy a house and needs a loan. The bottom line of insurance companies affects all of those things. (No, nobody can directly tie, say, Humana's bottom line to "Mary Main Street's" business loan. Doing so isn't the point here.)

Because insurance companies have the place they do in the economy, because so many business leaders know they are dependent not on any specific insurance company but rather on the insurance industry as a whole, they are willing to side with insurance companies. They don't want to see reduced their access to money.

You can like that. You can hate it. You can wish it weren't so or think something else. Whatever it be you and everyone else thinks of it, we all must face it and account for it in any health insurance provisions we might propose. What that means is that while one can legislate and regulate against insurance companies themselves, one cannot curtail the access to cash that businesses and individuals enjoy as a result of the insurance companies. Put another way, it means that if one is going to crush insurance companies or otherwise weaken their profitability, one must by some other means make their cash available in the market.


Note:

1. Aetna alone had 2015 "top line" (gross) revenue of 60.33B; thus ~$7.2B in cash accounts somewhere. You'll find the insurance industry 2015 bottom line here. It was some $690B, and $350B of that is life and health alone. The now failed AHCA was hoped to provide ~$330B in savings to the federal gov't.

I call it the medical-industrial complex they no more gives a crap about your or me, it is the bottom line that matters. Owning Congress certainly will protect their interests.

it is the bottom line that matters.

Well, of course. It wouldn't be a business if that were not the case.

 

[JoeB131]

What I don't understand is why does it end? He could have admitted to a set back but continued on. He didn't have to get it done in 60 days, take a year if he has to but do something ACA is still a POS that is going to bankrupt middle America.

I just think that the medical/industrial complex that Obama created is just too powerful.

No, what's too powerful is most Americans aren't heartless bastards who want poor children to die in the street.

The ACA is fine, despite the best efforts of the GOP to sabotage it over the last 7 years. Now they are stuck with it.

 

[Freewill]

What I don't understand is why does it end? He could have admitted to a set back but continued on. He didn't have to get it done in 60 days, take a year if he has to but do something ACA is still a POS that is going to bankrupt middle America.

I just think that the medical/industrial complex that Obama created is just too powerful.

No, what's too powerful is most Americans aren't heartless bastards who want poor children to die in the street.

The ACA is fine, despite the best efforts of the GOP to sabotage it over the last 7 years. Now they are stuck with it.

The real problem is left wing lying bastards.

 

[Hutch Starskey]

I just think that the medical/industrial complex that Obama created is just too powerful.

Obama and O-care didn't create that.

Insurance companies of all types have long been insanely powerful because of their role in the U.S. economy. Their power derives from the way they make the vast majority of their money: by investing policyholders' premiums in the world's financial markets. After asset management firms, insurance companies are the largest block of institutional investors around. They less they have to invest, the less money there is available in capital markets. Their funds reserve requirements [1] keep banks and other lenders flush with cash that can be lent to people who need money to buy "whatever." The remaining money they invest in stocks, bonds, real estate, commodities, etc. provides huge shares of the capital that enables companies to finance building all sorts of things -- factories, office buildings, productive infrastructure, etc.

Now, one can try to "sock it to" insurance companies and enact policy that harms their bottom line. That's a choice one can make, but in doing so, one had better be well aware at a very detailed level just how the policy is going to hit their bottom line and what ripple effect that's going to have on the economy as a whole.

For instance, we've heard in the news about various companies opting to build new plants in the U.S. Well, they won't build them without borrowing money (loans or bonds) or issuing stock to do so. "Mary Main Street" may want to open a business and hire a couple people. Odds are she can't do that without a business loan. Someone wants to buy a house and needs a loan. The bottom line of insurance companies affects all of those things. (No, nobody can directly tie, say, Humana's bottom line to "Mary Main Street's" business loan. Doing so isn't the point here.)

Because insurance companies have the place they do in the economy, because so many business leaders know they are dependent not on any specific insurance company but rather on the insurance industry as a whole, they are willing to side with insurance companies. They don't want to see reduced their access to money.

You can like that. You can hate it. You can wish it weren't so or think something else. Whatever it be you and everyone else thinks of it, we all must face it and account for it in any health insurance provisions we might propose. What that means is that while one can legislate and regulate against insurance companies themselves, one cannot curtail the access to cash that businesses and individuals enjoy as a result of the insurance companies. Put another way, it means that if one is going to crush insurance companies or otherwise weaken their profitability, one must by some other means make their cash available in the market.


Note:

1. Aetna alone had 2015 "top line" (gross) revenue of 60.33B; thus ~$7.2B in cash accounts somewhere. You'll find the insurance industry 2015 bottom line here. It was some $690B, and $350B of that is life and health alone. The now failed AHCA was hoped to provide ~$330B in savings to the federal gov't.

I call it the medical-industrial complex they no more gives a crap about your or me, it is the bottom line that matters. Owning Congress certainly will protect their interests.

it is the bottom line that matters.

Well, of course. It wouldn't be a business if that were not the case.

I think people forget that it is a business.

 

[Missouri_Mike]

I don't think a roll call vote would help as much as presenting the bill you ran on for eight years which was the full repeal of obiecare and the implementation of free market solutions.

Nobody on the right expected anything that was obiecare minus a couple pinches off the turd. That's why it failed. They got elected to eliminate this shit and bring us back to market policies. They chose to do this obiecare without the name bullshit and it failed.

Pure fucking stupid.

 

[g5000]

I have a better idea.

All the tards who voted for Trump should immediately demand to see all those plans he said he had.

He clearly lied when he told the tards he had a beautiful healthcare reform plan to replace ObamaCare. And the dumb fucks STILL have not caught on to that fact.

It takes a special kind of dipshit to bleev a huckster's promise without asking to see the actual plan.