Trump took to twitter saying he's going to fight the freedom caucus in 2018. Only 15 members of the freedom caucus voted against Ryan/trump care vs 18 republicans. Yet he's blaming, AND going after freedom caucus for trusting a bill made by the very same swamp kings he promised to go after. Is the freedom caucus really to blame?
Yes, they are to blame. By grandstanding on points they should have known would alienate more moderate Republicans, they made it impossible to pass anything that would repeal and replace Obamacare, however they only had the power to do this because Ryan handled the bill so badly and he was only able to **** up so badly because the President trusted him to manage it by himself. Trump makes lots of mistakes because he is new to politics, but he is a quick learner and the next time this issue is addressed, there will be a coordinated effort by the WH and Congressional Republican leaders to sell the bill first to voters - something Ryan never attempted to do - so that not only will some Freedom Caucus members support it, but also some Democrats running in purple districts will support it, too.
But didn't this bill alienate most of the republican base? It had something around an 85% disapproval rating. It's also not what trump promised, which was repeal and replace. This wasn't a repeal, the main Obamacare infrastructure was still there, this was a tidying up of Obamacare.
And again only 15 members of freedom caucus would have voted against it (never went to a vote). Freedom caucus is not a monolith caucus, or else freedom caucus would be a misnomer. And 18 non freedom caucus republicans would have voted against this bill, so how is it freedom caucuses fault?
I believe in the final count, the bill was only about 9 votes short of passing, so 15 members of the Freedom Caucus did have the power to kill the bill. It is simply not true the bill preserved the infrastructure of Obamacare. The Freedom Caucus objected to specific items, not the structure of the bill. The Democrats had poisoned the well with lies about who would lose their insurance so voters were frightened by the prospect of any change, and the Republicans should have mounted a PR campaign to reassure voters and convince them that returning control to the states via large block grants would make their insurance a better fit for them than Obamacare was. The Republicans ignored the public's anxieties about change so there was little popular pressure to get the Freedom Caucus to compromise.
And there were still 18 republicans outside of freedom caucus that were against the bill, so even with freedom caucus the bill still would have failed. Yes the bill was made in the cover of night, and it was trying to get rammed through, which certainly did not help the bill. The freedom caucus as well as other republicans opposed to the bill, voiced why they were opposed and it had nothing to do with the dems scare tactics. If the ACA never happened, and this bill were proposed, republicans would NEVER vote for it. Yes the Obama care structure is still in the bill, with a few tweaks. What the freedom caucus was asking for is doing the same vote they passed 60 TIMES before trump was president, and that was a full repeal back to pre Obamacare. Then fixing each issue in healthcare piece by piece, pre-existing conditions, crossing state lines for plans, allowing bigger pools for plans not strictly attached to whatever company you work for, etc. etc.
We have the HOUSE SENATE AND WHITEHOUSE, this bill was a joke. And it's a complete lie to say that this bill is our only chance for repeal. 100% lie, and quit honestly a cheap and Insulting tactic to try. This bill was terrible, so bad it didn't even go to a vote with republican controlled congress and whitehouse. Ryan and trump let us down, I wasn't surprised by it, but now they're trying to play the blame game instead of going back and making it right.
