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

I was wrong ... these guys are really intractable

With the self imposed constraints these guys want, I would say they can never find a solution.

The one ray of light would be if Democrats offered some fixes, but I do not believe any Republican/conservative would ever vote with a Democrat fix.

It would appear Republicans would rather allow ACA to fail and take down everything it tried to accomplish.

Maybe they will reconsider and do a repeal only bill, which everyone should support, with a proviso written on toilet paper of a future replacement plan.

The only thing certain is they had 6 full years to devise a replacement plan or a fix and failed miserably.

Conservatives like to move slowly ...

Trumpcare was nothing more than a tax refund for the rich Volume I disguised as "healthcare" bill. Shameful.

Trump's press conference was either a knowing lie, or complete delusion. He blamed The Dems for the failure of not having enough votes - ignoring the reality that if all the GOP voted, the bill would have passed.

Democrats passed ACA with zero Republican votes. Republicans have the majority now and they can't pass their own bill. (Democrats affected zero Republican votes, as everybody but Trump would expect.)

There are at least two Republican Party coalitions in complete opposition. One cares about getting reelected, and the other doesn't. I guess The Freedom Caucus believes their own propaganda.

Never a wise move in politics.

Can't just repeal huge chunks of Obamacare unless one either disposes of the Byrd Rule and / or the filibuster.

Not even McConnell is that sick.

For seven years - Repeal and Replace - that's all the GOP ever thought about, ever voted about.

It's like the GOP perusing a hot women for seven years, and she finally says the GOP can take her to bed, and once the GOP gets her there - "Mr Happy" doesn't rise to the occasion.

Lindsey Graham on health care: Republicans and Democrats need to work together - CNN. Duh!

I think there was a discussion in this forum of the future of the Republican Party. The administration claimed the HFC kept moving the goalpost in their pursuit of concessions. That can not be farther from than truth. The reality is they are all idiot-ologues for whom compromise is not in their dictionary. They were simply going through the list of idiot-ological demands.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out it takes a bipartisan approach to move forward.

The problem with health care reform is the framework WAS a compromise. The constraints are difficult from ideological perspectives. Republicans could not go with a 1-payer and Democrats could not go with an unregulated free market. So a hybrid exists which is unmanageable.

I think these folks should agree before any plan is offered to accept the best plan (whatever criteria they determine) developed. Thus we should see a 1-payer plan sent to CBO and a free market plan as starters. Refine the plans and the one which satisfies a pre-determined equation with minimization of cost and maximization of coverage is the package. Simply looking for the maximum number of people who would accept a reasonable solution.

While it is true in the mid 90's Cato proposed a mandated plan, Republicans have moved to the right which results in idiot-ological parameters which precludes any chance of bipartisan compromise.

Why not have a single-payer plan and private plans from any insurer who wants to participate. You still have the 10 essentials to make the quality consistent, and bronze, silver, gold, and platinum levels of copays and deductibles. No reason why a single-payer couldn't offer those four levels too.

Then let consumers decide which one they want. The single payer would be 15% cheaper just because of the overhead, but some people might decide they want XYZ brand and pay more. (I predict that no insurance company would choose to compete after the first year.)

There is a spectrum from Socialist to Freedom Caucus on healthcare. Their positions are all the way from single-payer for all to no government payment and not even any regulation of insurance companies. But no single group has the votes to change anything.

We have explored a coalition between normal Republicans and The Freedom Caucus: Doesn't work because they are diametrically opposed. But what about a coalition between Democrats and a few Moderate Republicans from Blue states? Are there enough votes there to lower the ACA income limit down to each state's upper Medicare limit? Those brave Republicans would get a lot of credit in their states for actually fixing a problem. When reelection time comes they could point to it and say they actually did something. Since this is just a numerical value that affects the budget I think you could pass it in reconciliation, avoiding a filibuster. Problem would be the committee heads preventing it from getting to the floors for a vote.

I'm not convinced that the voters actually care about ideology like the Hasturd Rule. (pun intended) They do seem to care about "the do-nothing Congress".