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AHCA vote delayed

Funny, in '09 and '10, the Democrats needed to deal mainly with the moderate/conservative portion of their party to get ACA passed. There was hardly a lunatic fringe on the left to appease.

In '17, the Republicans are trying to appease the lunatic right-wing fringe, while losing the "moderate" wing of the party that despite being partisans, they realize this bill is absolute poison.
 
Live from the floor of the House:

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ZiprHead said:
John Fugelsang is calling the AHCA the "Boo Radley" plan because it's never leaving the house.
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Very apt. Boo too was vilified by rumour-mongers, he too offered little presents to children and he too saved children's lives. :cool:
EB
 
So now that the repubs are in control, time to get things done right? Well, no.

I've suspected for a long time now that the Republican party was a house of cards, a tenuous alliance of convenience between disparate interests that don't actually have a lot in common. Now it seems like I was correct to think this as the republican party succumbs to infighting
 
LordKiran said:
So now that the repubs are in control, time to get things done right? Well, no.

I've suspected for a long time now that the Republican party was a house of cards, a tenuous alliance of convenience between disparate interests that don't actually have a lot in common. Now it seems like I was correct to think this as the republican party succumbs to infighting
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Well, this almost has to be the case for a two-party system. Both parties are more-or-less loose coalitions sometimes disparate ideological groups. In parliamentary systems, we see more coherent ideological groupings at the party level, but then multiple parties form the coalitions. These coalitions are more fluid in a parliamentary system, though. In the US, these coalitions reach a sort of stable equilibrium and then only get torn asunder during some upheaval.
 
You know, I wonder if Trump has played this in a very smart way. Ryan introduces the bill, Trump publically supports the bill, while Bannon trashes it to the right wing, bill fails in House, Trump washes his hand of healthcare and leaves Obamacare in place, Ryan goes down, Trump moves forwards with a weak Speaker under his thrall, and doesn't have to do anything more on healthcare, which never was his thing after all.
 
Sarpedon said:
You know, I wonder if Trump has played this in a very smart way. Ryan introduces the bill, Trump publically supports the bill, while Bannon trashes it to the right wing, bill fails in House, Trump washes his hand of healthcare and leaves Obamacare in place, Ryan goes down, Trump moves forwards with a weak Speaker under his thrall, and doesn't have to do anything more on healthcare, which never was his thing after all.
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I think Trump loses more than Ryan if this bill doesn't pass. And on two fronts.

Trump has been selling this bill hard (big leaguely). I think he has put himself more visibly behind the bill than Ryan has. Trump has been trying to sell whatever to whomever to change their vote on the bill. So he couldn't make the deal.

Then there is the whole, 'this bill doesn't remotely represent anything he promised on the campaign trail' thing. Not only Trump selling this bill hard, he is selling a bill that doesn't do what he said he wanted to do in the first place. So it shows quite a bit of lack in business skill to work so hard to try and promote something that isn't what you wanted in the first place.

Regarding getting a weaker Speaker of the House, the Republicans had to beg Ryan to step into the role. The Republicans don't have anyone else that can fit the bill. It isn't enough to have a weak Speaker, because if you need to get legislation passed that is ignoring the general will of the people in this country, you need someone that can push things through.
 
Watching CSPAN. Everyone seems to be preaching to their own choir. I wonder if anyone's mind is being changed by these last minute appeals.
 
J842P said:
LordKiran said:
So now that the repubs are in control, time to get things done right? Well, no.

I've suspected for a long time now that the Republican party was a house of cards, a tenuous alliance of convenience between disparate interests that don't actually have a lot in common. Now it seems like I was correct to think this as the republican party succumbs to infighting
Click to expand...

Well, this almost has to be the case for a two-party system. Both parties are more-or-less loose coalitions sometimes disparate ideological groups. In parliamentary systems, we see more coherent ideological groupings at the party level, but then multiple parties form the coalitions. These coalitions are more fluid in a parliamentary system, though. In the US, these coalitions reach a sort of stable equilibrium and then only get torn asunder during some upheaval.
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I think you'll agree that it goes to insane extremes though. Why are Randian Libertarians in the same party as Christian Fundies? Is having a single point of overlap really all you need to sign on with a group who's goals are largely mutually exclusive to yours?
 
beero1000 said:
Watching CSPAN. Everyone seems to be preaching to their own choir. I wonder if anyone's mind is being changed by these last minute appeals.
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Very doubtful. There are reports out that the vote was cancelled... again. So not only can Trump not get a bill passed, he doesn't have the balls to be voted down.
 
Why don't the republicans come up with a bill that makes everybody get insurance so the price of health care goes down?
 
Jimmy Higgins said:
beero1000 said:
Watching CSPAN. Everyone seems to be preaching to their own choir. I wonder if anyone's mind is being changed by these last minute appeals.
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Very doubtful. There are reports out that the vote was cancelled... again. So not only can Trump not get a bill passed, he doesn't have the balls to be voted down.
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Yeah, I'm hearing it's been pulled. I'd think that backing off of his ultimatum would look worse for Trump than just getting voted down and blaming the liberals. Now he's signaled that he can be pushed around by voting blocs in his own party. Weak.
 
Huh, well so much for the 'smart Trump' model I was pushing. With Trump's man Spicer saying, only an hour or so ago, that this will go forwards, and with Trump failing to disassociate himself with it, I guess its gone.

Though the weaker speaker idea is still valid. Trump's interests are not the same as Republican interests. That they had to beg Ryan to be speaker is nothing to Trump/Bannon. But it looks like this wasn't an effort in that direction. The question is which one will suffer more from this, and if they turn on each other after.
 
I think there are other consequences of this failure, I thought. NPR was reporting that the tax reform (not under the guise of health reform) required this to be passed first, so this messes all of that up as well.

Well, at least Trump gets to head down to Florida again and sleep with his hot wife... oh wait... well at least he gets to go down to Florida this weekend after a hard week of threatening people to do his bidding.
Sarpedon said:
Huh, well so much for the 'smart Trump' model I was pushing. With Trump's man Spicer saying, only an hour or so ago, that this will go forwards, and with Trump failing to disassociate himself with it, I guess its gone.

Though the weaker speaker idea is still valid. Trump's interests are not the same as Republican interests. That they had to beg Ryan to be speaker is nothing to Trump/Bannon. But it looks like this wasn't an effort in that direction. The question is which one will suffer more from this, and if they turn on each other after.
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Ryan's position as Speaker isn't in jeopardy. However, his chance at the Presidential nomination is. This is a huge mark against him.

For Trump it looks pretty bad as well.
 
A really stupid part of this is that they picked yesterday for the vote because it was the anniversary of the ACA signing, so unnecessarily rushing the process. Serves them right for picking dates for their action the same way terrorists do.
 
That's a good point. Ryan would have been a credible primary challenger for him.

I would have thought Trump would have preferred it go down in flames and blame it on Ryan than to take the responsibility for pulling it. What's he up to? Or is he not up to anything? Maybe he's just that dumb.

Yeah, remember that time that Brezhnev scheduled a space launch around a party congress, and that cosmonaut died?
 
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