Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Politics In General GOP at war with itself on health care

The republican congress was invited to attend the healthcare meetings during it's drafting stage. None attended. The republicans were given the material to go back to the districts they represented and present the information to their constituents. None did, or worse demonized it. Democrats were met with hostile tea partiers angry and upset with a head full of flies put in their with dark monies backing republicans. Death panels, etc....
Republicans declared it unconstitutional and would die at the feet of the supreme court. It did not.
Republicans voted over fifty times to repeal it in congress but it didn't happen.
Republicans cut at it, court challenged it and refused to expand it's benefits in the states that had republican majorities.
Republicans in congress howled at the thought of failing as their grandparents and great grandparents did in their failure to stop social security.
Not this time though.....
The GOP now has a chance to rip it out by the root and their politictal sharia ideology commands them to obey.
Tell me Ma, where in the constitution does it say the federal government must defer to free markets and political campaign money rather than it's enumerated duties outlined in the constitution?
By the way, how do you square the presidents campaign promises to make healthcare coverage for everyone, (we godda do this, folks") to your own 'free market' ideology that was crushing larger portions of the citizenry with it's faster rising premiums than it has been under ACA?

You are all over the map, Ma.

Why shouldn't basic health care be a part of the national general welfare?

There is nothing in the Constitution that precludes the government from becoming a Health Insurer, however history tells us that they are unable to balance their checkbooks, what would make us think that they could manage national health insurance? It would be a bigger disaster than what Obamacare is today.

There is nothing in the constitution that says that the government must supply health insurance to the population either. As a matter of fact, most people before this enlightened liberal time, attributed that the government's real function was the national defense and that the states should care for the well being of the their respective citizenry. Obamacare perverts the idea that the federal government should do what it is good at and leave everything else to the people.

I do not advocate anything other than watching the results of what happens when somebody wants to create history, does a piss poor job of it, and then throws it over the wall and blames everybody else.

The contradictions in Republican arguments, including our friend, Ma, are legion, but at least MA R is honest about not wanting us to help our neighbors, so kudos for that.

The fundamental problem, that really gets under the skin of ideological conservatives, is that virtually every social program Democrats and progressives have introduced over the last century has been wildly successful and wildly popular. They like to pretend these programs are failing, claim they are unpopular, and lament their "burdens" - but it's all a con game. The ACA already changed the landscape, but most Republicans can't admit they lost. People want coverage, now we're just discussing how to make it happen.

And the canard about government not being able to run anything is belied every day. The only people who can't run government are Republicans. It's ironic that people give them any credit for national security or economic expertise, since they are particularly bad at both. (I'll give you Harding, Hoover, Coolidge, Reagan, Bush and Bush as examples - every one presided over a recession induced by their policies. Republican Presidents and Recessions: A Pattern Trump Would Like to Break - Bloomberg.)

What about Medicare and Medicaid? The government has been running them for decades and Republicans keep trying to force them into insolvency through budget cuts and other cut backs. So what about Medicare and Medicaid?

Here is what I always find interesting. Everyone that is against a Govn't program will all of sudden be in favor of it when they get benefits from it. Yes even conservatives. Witness the hand wringing in the red states now that they realize that all of a sudden they may no longer be able to afford health care insurance.

So, when conservatives are in their later years and develop cancer or Alzheimer's I expect that they will expect the government to help subsidize the hundreds of thousands of dollars in expenses so that they do not go bankrupt, even if they can afford it.

It is not something that the federal government can do well enough to service the public. It will result in wasted billions of dollars and exploding insurance costs. I don't have a solution and even if I did I know myself well enough to know it would be just as bad as what the last guy did. Sometimes, the solution isn't socialism, or social justice, or even fairness. Sometimes you have to bite the lemon and accept the sour taste. Right now we have an opportunity to take away the sour taste of insurance premiums exploding through the roof. We a shot at actually have a do over. Maybe that do over results in doing nothing, maybe it results in solving the problem. The obvious problem, the 600 ton elephant in the room is that Obamacare is doomed.

Take the do over, live to fight another day, because when Obamacare goes belly up and it becomes a political hot potato, it will never be resurrected. It will go down as an object lesson of what happens when social engineering goes bad. If you want even a chance at saving something of what Obama lied about, it is time to make nice with the House Republicans who support the current bill. I say this because I know you will never do it and we will all watch as reporters tearfully deride the Republican Congress because they couldn't do anything to fix Obama's folly. It may, with any luck, be used as an object lesson of why not to trust Congress with your wealth and wellbeing.

I have been consistent since the first debate, you cannot add 10% of the population into an insurance system and think it will be OK. I remember people arguing that Obamacare would save people money, that it would decrease costs. Of course, those very people are arguing that Republicans should forgive and forget how badly Obamacare screwed the other 90% of the population, how we should be honored to be supporting the 10% who were being taken care of under the previous system.

Remember, it will cost you less and give you more? If you want to keep your existing plan you will be able to! You can keep your existing doctor also. Remember the bald faced lies? It wasn't aimed at the Republicans, it was aimed at the leftist liberals who would believe anything that Obama said because that way they wouldn't have think rational thoughts.

Let it die, and it will die with a whimper not a growl, the see if you can make a deal. That is call Playing Politics. That would be congress protecting 90% of the population from the largess that Congress has with other peoples money.

Momma raised ugly children, not stupid children. If somebody is giving away money, I will stand in line for it. That doesn't make me a hypocrite, that makes me smarter than the people giving the money away. If it is free, it is for me. My tax money is paying for it, may as well use it. The difference is I won't cry if and when the bad things happen. I won't blame somebody else because I have problems. Unlike a liberal, I never look to blame my problems on somebody else. Just as it always all about me and mine, my problems are my own.

I can not address your appearance but I can address your misinterpretation of what I wrote. If you read more carefully I stated that there would be the EXPECTATION of the gov't to be there when needed.

You selling but I'm not buying.
The upper middle and upper income class ALWAYS receive the majority of government largess. At least you are honest about it, though, so credit where credit is due.
Again, your OPINION is no answer to the question asked. If the constitution requires the elected bodies to carry out their constitutionally enumerated duties for the protection and general welfare of the nation then why does the republican Sharia philosophy think, on the one hand the federal government is the better administrator of the military rather than the states maintaining militia's, on the other howl at the moon should there be any effort by the elected bodies to administer on behalf of the public health?
We have been warned by our founding fathers about standing armies and foreign entanglements yet here we are. S'all good with GOP though.
Promote domestic healthcare lissen to the howls.....