OT: House vote on AHCA- will GOP cave to WH demand?

Who is worse, Trump or Paul Ryan?

SJG

The vote's been postponed (as I write this) and there's not enough support in the House. If it does get through the house, it's unlikely to get through the Senate. It's a massively unpopular bill according to recent polls. It's just utter chaos with Trump's bullshit campaign promises colliding with mathematics and reality.

Even if it does get through, the Pottery Barn rule applies: You broke it, you own it. When millions of people lose their health insurance, there will be a massive voter backlash. Hard to feel sorry for the working class rural white dudes who voted for Trump. But at least he's not a black guy with a funny Muslim-sounding first name.

"Winning,we will be winning so much you're going to get tired of it. " I believe that was a Donald J. Trump quote .

I think you called this one correctly @25. As usual.

America is not supposed to be a country of winners and losers. But that is what it has become.

SJG

That's just the kind of crap a loser says, SJ Guy!

;-)

Fuck yourself knight_errant. And don't ever get in my way, as I won't be kind of tolerant with you.

SJG

correction: "kind or tolerant"

SJG

"Calling" that this poorly drafted bill wouldn't get a vote, or not pass even if it did, is almost as impressive as calling East is where the sun will rise. On the other hand it was nice to see a political party where members actually have differing viewpoints.

I do not like big gov thus do not like gov ran health-care - I always felt, more like hoped, that the free-market would work-best but not sure if this applies to health-care - I think that special-interests may be what has in the past gotten in the way of the free-market working in health-care.

I don't like Obama-Care b/c it's a huge gov program that as w/ most gov programs (especially the bigger they are) they often become less and less efficient w/ time.

But health-care costs were outta control pre Obama-care to where many working folks could not afford it - IMO the special-interests fucking-up a possible good free-market solution is what led to Obama-Care.

I would've liked for the current administration to have taken its time coming-up w/ a truly good plan instead of LDKing w/ the desire to repeal Obama-Care.

Unless you have "gov run health care", then many will be without health care. And as it is now, unless you have gov run health care, you will have HMO executive run health care.

And 100 Senators and 435 Representatives have gov run health care, and you don't hear them complaining about it. I suspect that even Trump and Pence will accept it openly.

SJG

As of right now, very unlikely he has the votes. I bet he pulls some major threats overnight. Have to see what the situation is in the morning, but I'll very likely be short going into the vote

I just don't think people appreciate or respect things that they don't have to pay for. "pre-existing conditions" just means "I Need someone else to pay for my healthcare." We need a system where people can go to the doctor and expect a bill that is realistic and fits most budgets -- and I'm not talking about wealth transfer. Things were getting bad pre-Obamacare and are now even worse. I support medicaid and medicare as temporary nets not a permanent condition. It's too expensive.

"We’re going to have insurance for everybody. We’re going to have a healthcare that is far less expensive and far better.”--Donald Trump 1-11-17

Now Trump is pushing a bill that will kick millions of Americans off their coverage, reduce subsidies for those with low income, and give large tax breaks for the wealthy. The only time Trump isn't lying is when he's sucking Putin's dick.

Here are the numbers on the Trumpcare bill:

http://stevenrattner.com/2017/03/morning…

@ Dominic Medicare was paid for by everybody on it there would not be a major problem if the fucking politicians kept their grubby fingers out of our trust funds.
@ Dougster if this doesn't pass there will be a large pullback in the markets this will be a major concern because the man who claimed to be tha great deal maker has not yet made a deal with anybody all of his edicts have been by exec order that doesn't bode well for tax reform which is really what I think Wall Street is looking for.

@RandomThis is Paul Ryan getting even with Donald J Trump we'll see what happens now either way this is far from over.

Twentyfive, I was referring to Medicare Part D, passed in 2003 under President Bush I don't believe there is a trust fund for that. But basic Medicare that is part of *everyones* payroll taxes, I agree with you there. That money should be left alone as it is 100% funded thru payroll taxes.

@Dominic problem is fucking politicians see a pile of money they assume that they have the right to divert it to their own use. We should be marching with pitchforks on these over paid lazy prima Donna's.

Prima Donna. Not a bad stripper name if you've got a sense of humor.

They're going for a make-or-break vote today on Trump's healthcare reform legislation. Personally, I don't think it will pass in its current form.

@25: well he changed the stakes. It used to be that if he didn't get TrumpCare there won't be much tax cuts. Now it's just that they'll be stuck with ObamaCare (which the market prefers) but he'll still move on to tax cuts. So if there is a no vote, I could easily see a market rally: uncertainty gone, market prefers ObamaCare anyway. If there is a yes vote that will show he is still the man, in command. So market rally.

Does it mean, longer term, he won't be able to get things like tax cuts and infrastructure spending done? Quite possibly!

Obamacare doesn't look so bad these days huh.

And it shouldn't since the original idea of giving insurance companies another 13 million or so customers was started by a Republican (Gingrich) and first implemented by a Republican (Romney). When the GOP turns its back on its own principles in the name of hatred for Obama, they really have no where else to turn.

Papi, there IS no free market on health care due to government regulation. The GOP had a good idea to open the markets between the states, but the insurance company lobby won't allow it. Which is too bad because open, fair markets are supposed to be a GOP principle. So we were forced to compromise with Obamacare instead.

Trump has also put opponents in an interesting place: Oppose him and you are on his enemies list and, if you "win" all that happens is you are stuck with ObamaCare. If he sticks to his guns, I think he gets this through.

Obamacare was a fraud perpetrated on Americans and based on lie. It was in no way, shape or form a compromise. Kind of funny when the left says some Americans "will have to pay more" under Trump's plan, as if American taxpayers who are currently paying for these people who will have to pay for themselves, don't mean a fucking thing and don't count.

^^^Again why would you give a shit you only pay the taxes if your candidate wins. Responding to you is like picking the low hanging fruit you are such an ignorant jackass I just use your own comments to expose you time and time again.

@ Dougster, Trump is sure a slick Willie reincarnation, for a guy who claims to be a non politician, he sure is playing with these career politicians.

Skibum hit the nail on the head. The hypocrisy of liberals, progressives, and other leftists(including RINOs), is the most disgusting and destructive behavior in modern politics.

^^^ the oracle of the alt. right speaks.

The bill has failed due to no vote!

I think this is a good thing as it sounds like it wasn't ready to even be passed by either members of congress.

Yawn, stuff not even worth commenting on.

SJG

But you still did Lloyd didn't you, you twat.

They rushed it and still wanna rush it - they wanna just repeal repeal repeal w/o having something good/solid in place/as-an-alternative.

Hahahaha, Trump loses. Poor little child.

Slam dunked that faggit Trump! The ignorant and vulgar clown could not even get the Republicans to vote for Trumpcare.

Taking care of pre-existing conditions just means that we take care of people, rich or poor. Who cares whether they 'value it' or not. Want people to prostrate themselves, and in a society which is completely unfair?

SJG

Marilyn Ferguson
http://www.potentialsmedia.com/MarilynFe…

Aquarian Conspiracy
http://www.crossroad.to/Quotes/paradigm-…

Aquarius - Love, Drugs and Dead Hookers (Episode Highlight)
David Duchovny
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFM8AhkP…

http://www.vietnamesecoffeeshops.com/wp-…

ROFL!

Hilarious humiliation for Trump and the GOP. After 7 years of complaining about ObamaCare, the best the GOP could come up with is a bill that throws 24M people off their insurance, delivering mostly tax breaks to the top 2%. So much for that master policy-wonk Ryan and that master negotiator, Trump. But what can really expect form a geezer who has no patience or understanding of the issues, and who came into power based on being the leader of the crackpot birthers?

Maybe this is a good place for my favorite Paul Ryan quotes:
"I grew up reading Ayn Rand and it taught me quite a bit about who I am and what my value systems are and what my beliefs are.

"It's inspired me so much that it's required reading in my office for all my interns and my staff."

^^^^^^ RandomMember +20

SJG

SJG, -20,000!

OK folks, those of you throwing around that goofy 24mm number do realize that there are only 12mm people currently enrolled through Obamacare, no? Even if you add the highly disputable 7mm new Medicaid recipients, the projected number doesn't make sense. It assumes that no other options will become available before 2026 and that almost everyone enrolled in Obamacare will lose their insurance. The CBO has a horrible track record in forward looking projections btw.

I won't get into the weeds on the flaws in this analysis, like how many enrolled people would still qualify for Medicaid even if the expansion was rolled back, or how many of them would age into Medicare eligibility, or how many would/could find employment based insurance if they lost Obamacare, or how many would buy a cheaper plan on their own if these atrocious mandates were nixed, etc., etc. Nevermind the fact that many of the healthy subsidized people in that 12mm number don't really want the insurance anyway, but only buy these useless as shit policies because they do not want to pay a penalty with zilch return.

As someone who purchases insurance in the individual marketplace, I detest what Obamacare has done. I didn't get to keep my plan or my doctors the first year the mandates kicked in. Who cares if some people lose insurance when it costs a ton and is utterly useless anyway? I pay a fortune (seriously like a mortgage payment) for insurance that doesn't cover jack shit except for some nominal routine stuff until I've already shelled out $7,500 (14k for the family deductible) - not including the high co-pays, which don't get included in the out-of-pockets.

Oh yeah, and now there is only one insurer left in my individual marketplace. Same can now be said of 70% of the counties in the U.S.

So fuck Obama and doubly fuck this hideous fucking Obamacare disaster.

I meant many of the healthy "unsubsidized" people don't really want it anyway.

Forget which it was today but either CNBC or Bloomberg said Trump was planning to take the loss out on Ryan (which he didn't like much anyway given his campaign antics). So that will be something to watch.

I wish they had gone ahead with vote even if it was a loss. Wonder if that means there was more "no" votes than the just the Freedom Caucase boys.

@Dugan, it all depends. My employer-sponsored health insurance (Cigna PPO) is fantastic and the rates have grown very slowly during the ObamaCare years. If you're paying more on the individual market, it probably means you're young and healthy and you should thank your fucking lucky stars. Maybe you'll contact HIV from one of the legion of strippers you hump on a regular basis. If so, and after you can't work anymore, you'll be glad that Obamacare doesn't allow for discrimination against those with pre-existing conditions. Getting sick happens to the best of us. Or maybe you'll be happy to know that your daughters are covered until age 26.

The CBO is non-partisan and has a pretty decent track record. The Obamacare markets are in some trouble, but the CBO came out stating that the markets are not in a death-spiral. Congress has the option of fixing Obamacare or sabotaging what's left. Sabotage and blaming the Democrats isn't a smart way to prevent massive voter backlash.

Any far reaching governmental plan will have many holes in it. As soon as you try to fill one hole, another will open up.

Just wait and see what the replacement t plan looks like and you will likely find less expensive, but less coverage. This is a zero sum game with the pendulum swinging back and forth between balance of power. In due time the lendukum will begin shifting back, and then forth. That's the nature of
Politics and big policy. The next democratic/liberal controlled administration will be increasing OASDI or FICA payroll taxes higher than the mandated inflation adjusted caps (above $120k/ annual income). The uncertain is what you plan for.

I can see how having the homophobic on "ignore" makes intelligent debate better if not inclusive.

That being said, I find it funny that Obamacare isn't looking so bad after all... being a GOP program ( thank you Newt Gingrich with Mitt to prove it works)....the hatred of a black ex-president is NOT serving the conservative cause....

Random, that's the same CBO that estimated that 23 million people would purchase insurance through Obamacare by the end of 2017 open enrollment. The actual number is now just 9.2 million (my initial 12 million was apparently an old number). There are countless other long-term projections that they have screwed up as well, due usually to faulty assumptions and bad foundational data. They also dramatically underestimated the cost of the program as well as the impact of medicaid expansion. Google all of this if you need to.

As far as all of that other nonsense, there were far more targeted approaches that could have been used if we were simply looking to treat the sick. This mandate laden monstrosity is simply unsustainable and far too expensive, which you would understand if you actually had to buy insurance in the individual market. And as I said before, what good is insurance if many of the people who buy it cannot actually afford to use it because of high deductibles and copays?

Oh, and if my daughters need insurance in their 20s, then they can buy it themselves, with my money if necessary. It's not like there are family discounts in the individual marketplace anyway - it is all priced per head now based upon age and gender. I bet you didn't know that either, but there it is.

I am pissed that they are struggling to get the votes to roll this shit back.

"Winning we are going to win so much you people are going to get tired of winning." Yes Trumpies it's a win but for whom? Next up making Mexico pay for a wall.

Trump choked. He choked on Putin's dick. What a loser. Sad.

@25: yes, looks he was able to lose an impossible to lose situation: congress, the senate, and the presidency all Republican and, allegedly, deathly opposed to ObamaCare for 7 years, yet he still couldn't get anything passed.

I should probably leave political threads alone but there are clearly some fundamental misunderstandings about how health insurance works, especially from rickdugan.

There are no people on "Obamacare" per se. Obamacare is a combination of changes in regulation of the individual market, the availability of subsidies, and Medicaid expansion.

You eliminate all of those parts and people will lose insurance, period. The CBO was far more accurate than you say about Obamacare. What they got wrong is the relative numbers of people affected by expanded availability of the individual market vs Medicaid expansion.

The problem with health care policy is that Americans haven't agreed on what they want, except most people (especially people who voted Republican) want to have their cake and eat it too.

There is no way we can achieve universal coverage without single payer or something like Obamacare (but hopefully improved). If universal coverage what you want, and remember that Trump explicitly promised universal coverage that's better than coverage under the current system, then the AHCA sucked.

If you want people to pay their way and never to have low risk people subsidizing high risk people then there will be people who can't get insurance, period.

But nobody in politics has the guts to lay it out that way. The problem is that Trump promised something impossible unless we go single payer for everybody or have very intrusive regulation of insurance.

This is academic to me, since I have a secure salary and excellent insurance. But I will say that Paul Ryan really accomplished something. Specifically, he devised a bill that almost everybody hates, regardless of their politics. Getting that much bipartisan hate is hard.

Just another example of the fact that government in a democracy is not a business and cannot be run like one. I guess our President needs to come to the realization that he cannot force duly elected legislators to do what he says by bluster and bluff. Looks like Donald Trump is not the master deal maker he thinks he is.

Actually Donald Trump is looking more and more like Jimmy Carter with every passing day !

@Dugan made a good point about the differences between employer-sponsored insurance and the products you can buy on the individual market. I'm convinced that Obamacare has had almost no influence on the employer-sponsored insurance market. I've thought about branching into my own consulting business, and I've been following the products available on the exchanges. For a while there were some great PPOs available from UnitedHealth -- but they pulled out of the Obamacare marketplace, and what's left is just not acceptable to me. The Obamacare exchanges are not healthy where I live.

Remember that having the option to buy good insurance on the open market stimulates entrepreneurship.

In theory opening up the marketplace demanding people buy a certain product would spur an increase in demand, yet this is government intervention therefore you can't apply simply economics like supply and demand. The theory held in a vacuum sounds like it could work, but try implementing it in real life and you find the majority of people would tagged pay the penalty, and if shit hits the fan with their health they can't be denied coverage.

This is the sole reason why the cost continue to increase, because you can't mandate coverage without costs, and most of those costs will be eaten up by the people who actually make money. It's a power grab by the liberals, and now we are seeing G of the pendulum swings back to at least something more centrist. It's why the bill could t garner enough votes. Maybe next year they can rewrite it to agree with more elected officials who have to answer to their constituents in order to get re-elected.

I have no doubt any new plan by the asses in charge will fuck us all and enrich the wealthy, that's Trump's agenda.

Well you can always mount a sign to your walker and protest it, right, vinceygirl?

No walker here, dumbass, I haven't used one in over 2 years, stupid boy. LMAO

The fact that bait and switch, oops I mean repeal and replace was blocked by the Republicans themselves gives me a glimmer of optimism for the future. I guess there are still a few patriots left to oppose the con men.

And dickbreath fag. YAWN

IDK the details, but it was my understanding that the Republicans blocking was b/c the new bill they considered it to be "Obama Lite" - i.e. it was my understanding they blocked it b/c it didn't go far enough

Pure speculation on my part, but I think the problem was that most of the GOP assumed Clinton was going to win and they would have four more years of loudly opposing Obamacare, without having to actually design anything to replace it. I think they were surprised and then backed into a corner with all the campaign promises. It is a lot easier to "oppose" than it is to "propose". And lots of people could have told Trump that healthcare is complicated, if only he had bothered to ask.

Interesting post, @Sandyman, but the GOP failure is about more than just being unprepared. Universal healthcare requires forcing healthy people to buy insurance and requires redistribution of wealth to subsidize insurance for the poor. The GOP simply doesn't want either. You either have a single-payer system or something like Obamacare; there is no other solution.

We'll see what happens from here. Obamacare does need some tweaks to get more insurance companies back into the exchanges. Trump's essentially admitted that he wants Obamacare to fail, and he'll do his best to blame the Democrats. I think that strategy will backfire.

My ideal healthcare system would give everyone some essential Medicaid-like benefits, while affluent people could buy into a private insurance market for the very best surgeons and private rooms. My understanding is that the UK has that sort of system with the NHS co-existing with a private insurance market.

25: The reason the bill failed wasn't due to some sudden altruistic passion by the GOP for Americans; in reality the bill failed because they couldn't agree on the cruelest way to keep the old and sick from having insurance.

I think you're falling off your rocker, suckstar.

@ Rockstar I never said altruistic I said if you read closely that there are some that even though they might be mean recognize a con when they see it. Fact is they don't want to own it just use it as a base to rally their uninformed constituents. If they actually cared there would have been something there but as it is plain as day there ain't nothing like lights on but nobody's home. Or best analogy I have heard yet working on wooing some beautiful woman for seven years, finally get her to bed and you develop ED.