Obamacare: repeal and replace
Remember that slogan, “repeal and replace”? There have actually been quite a few bills passed in the House to repeal Obamacare in the last couple of years, whether you’ve noticed it or not. Here’s an article about it from this past October:
House Republicans pushed forward with another vote to roll back the Affordable Care Act on Friday, passing a bill that would repeal several major pillars of President Obama’s landmark 2010 law, including the requirement that Americans have health coverage.
The legislation, the latest of more than 50 bills by congressional Republicans to repeal all or part of the health law, would also halt federal funding for Planned Parenthood.
The 240-189 vote will not change anything in the health law or Planned Parenthood, however, as Obama has indicated he would veto the bill if it ever reaches his desk.
People complain all the time about Republicans controlling Congress and yet being unable—or is it unwilling?—to do something. But the power of a presidential veto often seems to leave the majority Republicans with little recourse but a shutdown, a move they’ve been understandably reluctant to take, fearing a negative backlash (something you may or may not think would ever actually happen).
Whatever one thinks of the reasonableness of the Republican failure to do what was promised, something seems to be changing. It may be “too little, too late” for you (or even for the country), or you may think it’s a case of just more kabuki theater. However, I think it is a real change, albeit a moderate one. One question is how far it can go, and whether it will matter. Another question is, why now?
I believe the change is at least in part a reaction to the growing sense that Congressional Republicans must have that their base is very very angry. This has been brought home to them by the popularity of such non-establishment candidates as Fiorina, Carson, and of course Trump. It also is a result of conservative members of Congress using their influence to pressure Boehner to resign, something that underscores my own point of view that one of the best ways for conservatives to fight for what they believe is to support conservative candidates for Congress.
I wrote about the prelude to this move back in early December. The difference had occurred in the Senate, not just the House, even though McConnell is still in charge in the Senate. The mechanism by which it occurred was reconciliation, the hair of the dog that bit them:
While the House and Senate have voted scores of times to repeal portions of Obamacare, this was the first time they are using a special tool known as “budget reconciliation” that allow the measure to clear the Senate with just 51 votes instead of the 60 votes typically required for major legislation. That higher threshold has allowed Democrats to block all past repeal efforts.
Here’s what Jeff Sessions said about it at the time—and pay attention, all ye who say that a Republican president wouldn’t matter:
“It demonstrates that if you have a president prepared to support health care reform, it could pass next time,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Alabama, a vocal critic of the Affordable Care Act who insisted this was not a show vote just because the President will veto the bill. “If this vote occurred after the next presidential election, instead of vetoing it the President would sign it. This would force a bipartisan reevaluation of health care in America and put us in a position to make major changes.”
That was a month ago. Now, we have this:
Within hours of reconvening Tuesday, the GOP-led Congress will finally act to fulfill a 2010 promise to repeal and replace ObamaCare.
The effort is set to begin Tuesday afternoon when the House Rules Committee meets on the repeal measure, with a full debate and vote as early as Tuesday. With the Republican-led Senate having already passed its version, GOP congressional leaders will send the measure to President Obama, daring him to veto it.
Obama will undoubtedly veto the measure to undo his signature health care law, and Congress has nowhere near the votes to override a presidential veto.
But Republicans hope the entire exercise might start to change the circumstance on Capitol Hill regarding the years-old argument about ObamaCare and its repeal.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., is promising to unveil a bill to, in fact, replace ObamaCare…
…[W]ith Ryan now at the helm in the House and the GOP controlling the Senate, this may be one of the few chances the party has to come together around a bill which would replace the six-year-old law…
Ryan won’t be able to implement the replacement package either with Obama still in the White House in 2016 — if it does, in fact, get that far. But if Ryan’s successful, he’ll have come a lot further than anyone else has before.
Read the rest of the article, which describes the reconciliation process.
Obama will veto it, but:
The GOP hopes it can artfully message its plans to design and approve a replacement bill for ObamaCare — with something with a lot more policy teeth than the other parliamentary gymnastics of just voting to repeal parts or all of the legislation over and over again.
Republicans also are hoping the public embraces these policy ideas as a contrast to those propounded by Obama and Democrats with health care topping the list.
Republicans didn’t control the Senate until a year ago. But when they took control, many people (and I was one of them) were hoping that Congress would be placing bill after bill on Obama’s desk—bills he would veto, but which would highlight what he was blocking and show what the Republicans stood for in contrast. That didn’t happen, and the reason was probably threefold, in no particular order: Boehner’s “leadership,” the Senate filibuster giving the Democrats the power to block legislation there, and a lack of understanding on the part of some of the more moderate Republicans about how angry the base had become. Now Boehner is no longer in charge, and Congress seems to have received some of the message about the rage. The filibuster is still in place, and Republicans don’t want to jettison it for such relatively small gains—I write “small gains” because all they would get is the ability to put bills on Obama’s desk in order to have him veto them. It’s something, but is it worth it? I’m ambivalent about that, myself.
However, the reconciliation process—which can only be used for certain bills, not all of them—is perfect for this one. And it’s nicely ironic, because that’s the way Obamacare was sneaked by in the first place. The difference? Obama didn’t veto Obamacare.
The GOP is its own worst enemy and has been for years. We had over 30 years notice this was coming, from Ted Kennedy through Hillary working in Bill’s administration, yet the Congress never effectively moved to correct serious problems in our nation’s health insurance system.
Beyond Congress’ typical fecklessness, why was there no national movement to privately provide insurance for those in need? A Conservative group could have initiated and fostered a national campaign that paid premiums and deductibles for the uninsured.
As much as I loathe the ACA and how it was passed, Conservatives and Republicans have no one to blame but themselves. They had more than sufficient warning and time to eliminate the need.
Rufus T. Firefly:
I agree that Congressional inaction led to the problem. However, most states had high-risk pools to deal with at least one of the difficulties.
I think that, in general, Republicans in Congress favored letting the states deal with the situation, on a state-by-state basis.
How about “Repeal and leave the government out of it”?
“It may be “too little, too late” for you”
Apres le Trumpening it is all too late for Republican apologists. Raw meat is what’s on the menu for teh G[L]OP.
The problem is not insurance per se, but monopolies that undermine market regulation, underpeforming economies that are subsidize through redistributive change, and environmental conditions that prevent providing services.
Unfortunately, the Republicans still have a major task in 2016 in retaining control of the Senate. Only ten Democrats are up for re-election vs 24 Republicans. Trump has made this into somewhat of a throw-all-the-bums-out election, which could actually help the Dems in the Senate.
Even with a Replubican POTUS, but without the Senate, we’ll be back to McConnell slurring “but we only control 1/2 of 1/3, plus all of another 1/3 of the government, so to prevent us from being blamed for a government shutdown caused by the Democrat Senate, our only choice is to give the Democrats everything they want” or something.
I am in sync with snopercod and n.n. The health care system is rife with crony capitalism. Prices are fixed and monopolies are enabled by government regulations.
Doing this during a campaign year makes more sense because it can be served up as a campaign issue that will be “fresh.” Candidates can say, “See, we passed legislation to repeal and replace the ACA, but the President, who doesn’t care that the new legislation will provide relief to millions of citizens and improve the economy, has vetoed it in a partisan way.” Using this to argue for both, more Republicans in Congress and a Republican President, should be a winning major campaign issue. More people than ever are feeling the effects of the ACA and are not happy.
Did any of the “more than 50 bills by congressional Republicans to repeal all or part of the health law” make it to Obama’s desk to be vetoed?
Without vetoed legislation, how do Republican candidates disprove the leftist charge that they have nothing to offer as an alternative? Stating that they would have… if only they hadn’t been certain that Obama would veto them is an unpersuasive argument.
“I think it is a real change, albeit a moderate one.”
IMHO, the Omnibus bill decisively disproves that assertion.
“I believe the change is at least in part a reaction to the growing sense that Congressional Republicans must have that their base is very very angry.”
Once again, the Omnibus bill demonstrates just how ‘concerned’ they are with their bases anger.
“many people (and I was one of them) were hoping that Congress would be placing bill after bill on Obama’s desk–bills he would veto, but which would highlight what he was blocking and show what the Republicans stood for in contrast. That didn’t happen, and the reason was probably threefold, in no particular order: Boehner’s “leadership,” the Senate filibuster giving the Democrats the power to block legislation there, and a lack of understanding on the part of some of the more moderate Republicans about how angry the base had become.”
Boehner could not ‘lead’ where a majority was unwilling to follow.
The democrat demolition of the Senate filibuster using the “nuclear option” was a clear signal to the Republicans that they were no longer in a ‘knife fight’. By not responding equally, the GOP demonstrated their unfitness. They rolled over and showed their bellies.
‘moderate’ (RINO) Republicans knew long ago how angry the base had become, they simply didn’t care and they still don’t. It’s another “dog and pony show” for the ‘rubes’.
^^This!^^
Geoffrey Britain:
In the links it explained what I think the post also implied, which is that, in the Senate, the Democrats blocked the vote through the filibuster/cloture rule. That has been true of a lot of bills. It wasn’t until early December, when the Republicans decided to use reconciliation to pass this particular bill (a process that can only be used for a few bills), that it has a chance to pass both houses and therefore find its way to Obama’s desk.
The Democrats did not end the filibuster/cloture rule, even for Obamacare. They used reconciliation. They ended the filibuster/cloture rule for federal judge approval only.
neo-neocon, if the GOP thought it were best left to the states why not make it easier for companies to compete across state borders.
If Conservatives believe certain important issues are not the purview of a centralized, Federal government then they need to work to eliminate those important issues. Millions of folks lacking insurance is a tragedy. Help those folks.
It shouldn’t have required a political solution from Washington, but private and charitable institutions were not stepping up to sufficiently help those in need and Congress was not passing legislation to free up the private insurance marketplace.
Look at what Glenn Beck is doing with his “Nazarene Fund.” He believes Syrian refugees need homes and so he is privately soliciting contributions and acting to help them.
Democrats only have a hammer and will see every problem as a nail. Take away the problems through private and individual action and there will be no nails they can hit.
snopercod and Geoffrey Britain,
I don’t understand why so many who dislike what Liberals and Progressives do in politics continue to believe the GOP has an answer. The GOP has been awful for a long, long time. True, they are less awful less often than the Democrats, but they are awful. And, the Democrats are much better organized.
Isn’t the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results? Expecting the GOP to be Conservative or to reduce the size of Government or to play political hardball is the definition of insanity.
Neo-neocon said:
“…a shutdown, a move they’ve been understandably reluctant to take…”
When confronted by a recalcitrant opponent, you keep ratcheting up the pressure. Eventually, you either surrender or go to war. It is unconscionable that Republicans refuse to use the power of the purse.
“…conservative members of Congress using their influence to pressure Boehner to resign…”
Boehner didn’t resign under pressure. He took the easy way out on his path to his golden parachute of K street. He gave the lobbyists one last, giant gift knowing that if he’d tried to stay in office after it, he would have been removed.
“It demonstrates that if you have a president prepared to support health care reform, it could pass next time.”
It does indeed demonstrate that, which is why McConnell allowed it to happen. This is his way of saying that not only will we need a Republican president (Which IMO we are likely to get), but we will also need to preserve the GOP majority in the Senate.
Mitch McConnell is a scheming crapweasel, and he sees his majority endangered by his own actions. Voters may be so incensed that they just don’t care any more.
I have no more patience for the traitors and cowards who led us to this place. They are dead to me.
My prediction:
I assume that either Trump or Cruz will win the presidency. Assuming that Trump is an actual reformer (I already know Cruz is), here’s what will happen:
The bipartisan fusion party will stymie most reform, especially government downsizing. If there’s any belligerent action on the part of the president, the Congress will discover a newfound respect for impeachment.
The only thing that will be accomplished domestically over the next 4 years is for a reformer president to highlight just who in Congress is the obstructionist, so that the voters can REMOVE them.
By 2020, we should start making progress. Sorry that’s not quicker or happier, but fighting corruption is a long haul.
I suppose things might go faster if the economy collapses, but these days I’m more leaning toward the Japanese slow-bleedout scenario.