I’m Calling It: Trumpcare Going DOWWWNN!
My self-imposed exile from the news shows having (temporarily?) ended, I watched a lot of coverage of the Trumpcare battle the last couple of days, and also read the reports in the papers.
I can only reach one conclusion. If a vote is held on Thursday, Trumpcare is going down, and maybe going down YUGE.
Here’s why. You have at least two groups of R’s who have strong reasons to vote no, and you can’t attract supporters from one group w/o alienating would-be supporters from the other group.
You have the Freedom Caucus Crazies who (a) see the bill as a huge welfare giveaway and (b) can’t stand Paul Ryan and would like nothing better than to rub his nose in defeat. Even the so-called ‘work requirement’ hasn’t mollified many of them. There are 20 or more from this group prepared to vote no. 22 no votes from R’s will kill the bill. I was shocked at the number of Freedom Caucus reps who were all over the tube blistering the bill.
Then you have the Rust Belt and northeast R’s whose constituents will be devastated by the bill. Even Michigan’s despicable Gov. Rich Snyder has sent letters to the delegation telling them how many constituents in each district will lose protection under Trumpcare. Same for Ohio’s John Kasich. You think, for example, that western Pa. reps are gonna vote to reduce benefits to their retired coal miners? That would cost them their seats.
It looks like Trump’s visit to Capitol Hill accomplished nothing. In fact, it might have been counterproductive. The Washington Post reported that three representatives who had been leaning no came out of the Trump meeting as solid no’s. The trend is not their friend.
The argument for passage has now changed to ‘if we lose this one, it will place our entire agenda in jeopardy’.
In politics, the only jeopardy that concerns elected officials is whether their reelection chances are in jeopardy. As one wag pointed out last night, Obamacare is far more popular now than it was when Obama was president. Those rats are not going down with the sinking Ship of State. Trumpcare is going down.
Cut-n-save.
‘Member that time in 2009 when the ACA was “goin down”, because pissy conservadems weren’t happy?
This will be back, it will be worse, and the GOP will unite around it. Just like they fell in line behind Dampnut.
I don’t know. You don’t factor in Putin’s vote, or the Republicans innate and deeply ingrained followership.
Coons might help push them over the edge. He shant to look un-bipartisan for all those swing voters.
With the 6 year term and the high cost of entry, a Senate seat in Delaware is a lifetime sinecure. Coons could be Bernie Sanders and still win easily.
If he votes for Trump is any way it isn’t out of fear, it is out of moral bancruptcy.
I haven’t seen any polling about him for at least a year, but Coons has lagged well behind Carper in opinion polling, meaning his seat looks less safe than Carper’s, which means he doesn’t think he’s safe.
I’m calling it: Trumpcare is going to PASSSSSS the house.
They know how to play the long game:
It looks like Trump is trying to get the bill through the House by ceding the content of the bill to the House Freedom Caucus:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/freedom-caucus-optimistic-changes-repeal-bill
It may work.
However, the proposed deal would place House R’s in potentially competitive districts in grave jeopardy. For a yes vote on a bill that can’t possibly pass the Senate in anything approximating its current form.
I wonder what DelawareDem’s prediction is? I’ll pick what he didn’t.
The House has repealed Obamacare dozens of times before. I’m calling it for passing the House.
I think Nemski just triggered somebody…
Prediction: If Trumpcare passes 216-215, he’ll call the victory huge and, by the end of the year, will proclaim it passed by “the largest margin ever.”
El Somnambulo, Ryan knows that it can’t pass the Senate and he is banking on that. Because this will never be signed into law, Republicans in the house are free to vote for it and thereby not piss off the Trumpites in their districts. R’s in competitive districts will be able to avoid responsibility on election day by simp,y saying “What repeal? Obama care is still in place.”
Those who vote for this bill will not be able to avoid the flak, especially if the Freedom Caucus changes get added. Meaning, they become yuge election targets. A vote is a vote. In some ways, this may play into the Freedom Caucus’ hands…fewer Rethugs needing to protect their moderate flanks in swing districts.
Part of me hopes the whole darn thing passes.
1) the president’s voters will be more effected than anyone else.. so, fewer votes for him next time
2) Americans are dumb fucks who need to be reminded every 8 years of what “conservative governance’ looks like…. when getting the flu starts costing Midwesterners their homes, they’ll think twice about voting for someone based on how hard they are going to beat gays and brown people.
@Ben: You don’t seem to understand that for Trump voters, ending Obamacare IS about sticking it to the brown people.
Let them feel like they won…. then, when the only hospital within 100 miles in their shitty little corner of PA closes down and they die, they wont be able to vote for Putin’s Pet again. I’ll take that trade.
@Ben: If that were a guarantee, so would I, even though that would throw me out onto the individual insurance market. I can afford that, but most can’t.
Sadly, the hardest hit people — besides those who actually contract or develop life-threatening diseases and conditions — will be the old folks in nursing homes. Their numbers swelled as the WWII generation has aged and died, which is why Medicaid grew so much in the past decade, which in turn is why Ryan and his Koch money want it stopped.
Republicans are the spiritual children of a comedian you might not have heard of, Jack Benny, who played a miserly cheapskate his whole career. His most famous line was when a mugger points a gun at him and says, “Your money or your life!” Benny responds, “I’m thinking, I’m thinking.”
Republicans value money over any life beyond their own kith and kin. When they talk about freedom, they are not talking about human rights — they’re talking about the freedom to make money, and they want the right to swing their arms with it whether it hits you in the nose or not. In fact, they see the problem as noses standing too close to their free-swinging arms.
They cannot be negotiated with — not merely because they are dishonest, but because they place no value on lives, and they approach every negotiation knowing that Democrats will sacrifice everyone’s money for poor people’s lives. And Republicans run against them on that basis — that you can’t trust soft-hearted people with the public purse.
How does one compromise with that?
Aw c’mon, just because im a “youngen” I cant appreciate the classics? (YYUGE Allan Sherman fan)
To answer your last question………..you dont. There can be no compromise. That is what pissants like Coons fail to see. It was Obama’s biggest failure.
It’s “us” or “them” and we just have to outlast them. If society lasts long enough for people under 35 to make it to the positions of power currently occupied by Reaganites, we just might be ok.
You’re describing generation “ME”. The people who started blaming the teachers for their spawn failing a class. They Invented participation trophies to give to their nonathletic whelps so they felt less like failures. They dont even really care about money. The market is proving that tolerance is profitable and they whine and scream because the world no longer looks like episodes of the Wonder Years.
@Ben: Didn’t mean to sound like Gramps, but I find it’s no longer possible to assume younger people even heard of Jack Benny.
I agree with you about “generation ME,” though back in the ’70s they dubbed it the “Me Generation.” I think it was part of the backlash against the ’50s. By the end of that decade one of the big fears of intellectuals was that corporate America was molding everyone into identical “men in gray flannel suits.” The teamwork that grew from the war effort was becoming stifling. Naturally, the reaction was in the opposite direction.
We still haven’t recovered from the resulting Individuality Revolution, which is a big part of the culture wars the right has been fighting ever since.