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Tuesday, July 18, 2017

Senate GOP ObamaCare Repeal bill goes "poof"

a.k.a. "Trumpcare," though The Donald is "not going to take ownership."

John Irvine at THCB:

Senators Mike Lee and Jerry Moran said yesterday that they would not vote for the Better Care Reconciliation Act, effectively killing the legislation.  As anybody who has been following this story would have predicted, President Trump reacted publicly on Twitter on Tuesday morning, vowing to let the ACA marketplace collapse and then rewrite the plan later.

Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell attempted a quick punt this morning, calling for an immediate Senate vote on the House bill, a trick card that if it worked, would give Republicans two years to work things out.

Unfortunately for McConnell, it probably won’t.

The White House sees the failure as saying more about the political establishment in Washington than itself, which shouldn’t be all that surprising…

So much for Article II, Section I of the Constitution and owning the faithful execution of the  laws. The ACA remains the law.

"You're going to have such great health care, at a tiny fraction of the cost, and it's going to be so easy." - Donald Trump, Oct 2016 Florida campaign rally.
Right.
See my old post (2009) "Public Optional."

FREE BEER TOMORROW?

Dr. Adrian Gropper posted an interesting comment at THCB under the foregoing post:
The substantive changes that are about to happen in US healthcare will be driven by technology (artificial intelligence, telemedicine, blockchain identity, longitudinal health records), not politics.

Our institutions have little choice but to pretend they are still in control of their traditional roles. Congress may be the most obvious example today, but insurers, employers, and hospitals are also lost in the ether. None of these institutions is pitching a solution.

To stabilize healthcare in the face of massive technological change start with the tech, not the incumbents.
Well, one hopes, anyway. I guess we'll see.

Interesting observations from Bob Cesca -
At some point, congressional Republicans will entirely abandon President Donald Trump. How do we know this? If you look closely, you’ll notice that it’s already happening. One by one, Republicans on the Hill are growing tired of Trump’s poorly-informed, lazy, self-centered lack of leadership, and it’s a safe bet that more than a few members are wondering whether the 2018 midterms will turn out better without Trump dragging them down.

Whether this precipitates a Barry Goldwater Watergate moment in which Republican leadership hikes down the block to insist upon Trump’s resignation remains to be seen, but what’s immediately observable is that the Trump coalition is rapidly vaporizing, leaving the chief executive with fewer and fewer influential defenders in Congress. The rapid, awkward demise of Trumpcare and the president’s confounding reaction in the aftermath might’ve been the last straw in an already ungainly relationship between both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.

Frankly, if I were Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell or Speaker Paul Ryan, I’d strongly consider cutting bait with Trump given the way he has repeatedly set them up to fail while doing little to exercise any kind of meager leadership. Without a substantive ally in the White House, it becomes less likely they’ll continue to tolerate and backstop his uneducated, rookie gibberish and social media outbursts, embarrassing the party and tainting it with the stink of his failed administration. How much longer will they continue to tolerate Trump playing honk-honk-goes-the-truck and tweeting on the john while they spend valuable political capital on legislation he barely understands and, despite his marketing acumen, has repeatedly fumbled?

The failure of Trumpcare was partly about the president’s lack of even a basic, entry-level sense of how a bill becomes a law. It was also partly about Trump’s running-on-fumes political capital. The whole concept of repealing and replacing Obamacare with the snap of his short fingers merely set up Trump and Congress to fail. Not only is it nearly impossible for conservatives to create a affordable, universal health care program, but it was never going to get done within a few short months, much less “on day one.” Since Congress was unable to match a lofty goal established by a political amateur, Trump set them up to fail…
Yeah.

I just wanna sing...


I wrote and recorded that five years ago after SCOTUS upheld the Constitutionality of the ACA.

Links to some relevant prior KHIT posts:
House Calls, STAT!
Paying for Health Care
#ShowMeTheBill
An American Sickness
Rationing by 'Price.'
There are more. That's enough for now. And, oh, yeah, review "Making the world a better place."

JULY 19TH GOP ZOMBIECARE UPDATE


"Nice little Senate seat ya got there. Be a shame if something bad happened to it."

ON "TAKING OWNERSHIP"


What a difference four years makes, 'eh? 

BREAKING

GOP Arizona Senator John McCain has been diagnosed with a glioblastoma brain tumor. Hate to hear that. Blogged about those here.
____________

More to come...OafTrumpcare

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