David has the basic overview below of what is coming today. I wanted to add a few more points about what to expect and just as, or perhaps more, importantly what you can do now.
First, this should remind us of what I’ve previously called the Iron Law of Republican Politics. That is, the ‘GOP moderates’ will always cave. I learned this law back in 1998-99 during the impeachment drama. Lots of Republicans thought impeachment was insanity. They warned against it. Said it shouldn’t happen. Said it would be a disaster. Every Republican in the House but four ended up voting for it.
That’s the Iron Law: the ‘GOP moderates’ will always cave. Read More
A new report estimates that the House GOP’s Obamacare replacement would help cover 110,000 of the 2.2 million people with pre-existing conditions in the individual marketplace.
That analysis accounts for the $8 billion in additional funding that the Upton amendment provides that helped win over so many moderates.
Have employer-based health insurance and not too worried personally about Obamacare repeal? Not so fast, friend.
Enough House GOP moderates, laboring with the pre-existing condition know as weak spines, have mostly come over in the last 24 hours to appear to give Paul Ryan and Donald Trump the votes they need to pass Obamacare repeal and replace and send their monstrosity of a bill over to the Senate, where it will be dramatically reworked one way or the other.
No CBO score and, as of a few minutes ago, no final complete text for the bill. But a vote is expected this afternoon, and as of right now there doesn’t appear to be the kind of wobbling from House GOPers that would imperil the bill. We’ll bring you all the latest as it happens.
I had planned on writing this post early this month. But Sunday evening I got into an exchange on Twitter about the controversy with the Times and Bret Stephens and many people canceling their subscriptions over his hiring. That prompted me to discuss some broader questions about the future of digital news journalism and advertising. It gives me a launching off point to discuss the broader issue. As I explained in that exchange, I have no dog in the Times fight. People should make their choices and – this is all I’ll say – whenever possible judge publications in their totality and over time. The leeway to make some mistakes is one thing that keeps a publication vital. But I want to talk in more depth about the issue of journalism and subscriptions, both in terms of the journalism industry generally and specifically how it affects TPM. Read More
It now seems likely that there will be a House vote on Trumpcare Third Try some time this week. It might well not happen. It’s impossible to know for sure. But it does appear much more likely than people thought as recently as this morning.
Here’s the big thing to keep in mind, front and center. Trumpcare 1.0 went down in flames in part because of the CBO score showing that 24 million people would lose their health care coverage and that most of the protections provided by Obamacare would be scrapped. Read More
Here’s where we are. After weeks of false assurances, puffery, and salesmanship intended to give Obamacare repeal some legislative momentum when in fact there was none, the White House appears closer to securing the necessary votes than it has at any point since the bill was yanked in March. It’s not a done deal yet, and in truth, it’s difficult to trust any of the pronouncements by the interested parties after all the nonsense talk of the last few weeks. As of now, no vote has been scheduled, and the window for getting the vote done is narrow. The House is gone on recess from Friday through next week. A vote would have to be Thursday. That’s looking more likely than it has in weeks. Stay tuned.
We’re now past the 100 Days. And it was more or less universally agreed that, in historical terms and against expectations, it was an abysmal failure. President Trump as much as conceded this with his wild mix of angry denunciations of the 100 Days standard combined with press releases touting meaningless metrics like number of executive orders signed, number of foreign leaders talked to and similar nonsense. Set all that aside. That’s really a given. What I’m interested in now is Trump’s reaction. He failed. He gets that. But why did he fail? In the Trumpian psyche, it can’t be Trump’s personal failure or a failure of strategy. So who’s to blame?
In recent days, we’ve gotten the answer, though I have not seen it put together as such. The problem is the constitution or more generally, democracy. Read More
The new wrinkle today in the House GOP’s desperate effort to round up enough votes to repeal Obamacare is another proposed amendment to the bill. It is designed to win over moderates but would actually do very little to move the dial on the key policy imperatives of the bill. It’s important to understand that because the tone and tenor of the political coverage will tend to downplay it. It’s much more fun to cover the will they or won’t they get the votes and the shuttle diplomacy up and down Pennsylvania Avenue than to grapple with the underlying policy implications of the bill.
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I wanted to share some background perspective on The Trumpcare Long March and whether there’s a chance Trump will still be able to repeal Obamacare and toss 20+ million off their healthcare care coverage. Read More