Faced with the day of reckoning on House Speaker Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) Obamacare replacement, 70-yer-old President Donald Trump told House Republicans, specifically the Freedom Caucus, to vote for the plan or keep Obamacare. Trump ran on a platform in 2016 of “repealing and replacing Obamacare,” something now in doubt with House Republicans squabbling over the new plan’s provisions. Ryan must arm-twist members of the Freedom Caucus who believe the new GOP plan is nothing more than Obamacare-lite. Keeping Obamacare’s provisions for pre-existing conditions and coverage for children up to 26-years-of age, House Freedom Caucus members see Ryan’s new plan as a continuation of Obamacare. When the nonpartisan House Budget Office predicted March 13 that 24 million subscribers would lose their insurance under the GOP plan, the public gasped.
Freedom caucus members aren’t concerned about how many Obamacare subscribers stand to lose their insurance, only about reducing the government’s liability paying for Obamacare. With so much disinformation in the news about Obamacare, it’s difficult for consumers to tell what to do. When former President Barack Obama signed Obamacare into law March 23, 2010 without one GOP vote, it so infuriated the Republican Party, Obama found himself in legislative gridlock for the duration of his second term. For seven years, the GOP has demonized Obamacare, not primarily because it was so bad but because it was imposed on the GOP by Obama. Trump got big cheers at campaign rallies promising to repeal-and-replace Obamacare. What Trump voters didn’t realize is that there’s only so many ways you can slice-and-dice health care plans to make they work.
Now the GOP faces the real possibility that they don’t have enough votes to push the GOP’s health care bill through the House. While it’s still possible enough of the Freedom Caucis will acquiesce, the House still passes a bill with many flaws. Instead of fixing Obamacare, the GOP decided to throw the baby-out-with-the-bathwater, junking Obamacare, instead of fixing it. If a bipartisan Congress simply passed price controls on Obamacare rate hikes, it would go along way in fixing the problem. Under Obamacare, subscribers get comprehensive medical insurance, not some bare-bones plan expected under the new GOP bill. GOP’s pending bill would allow insurance companies to once again offer inferior insurance plans, once commonplace in the marketplace. Make no mistake, Obamacare was a far more costly, comprehensive plan than anything proposed by the GOP.
Expecting to scale back Medicaid [health care for the poor] spending, the GOP plan hopes to save money but at subscribers’ expense. “ I advised leadership not to put it on the floor [for a vote] unless they had the votes, so I certainly hope we have them,” said Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), defying Trump’s threat to move on to other priorities if a vote doesn’t occur today. Trump’s fed up with the Freedom Caucus’s demands, telling Ryan that if the vote doesn’t happen today, he’ll move on to other legislation. Unable to get the votes, Ryan pulled the vote today, letting Trump call the shots. Whatever misgivings the Freedom Caucus has with the GOP bill, they’re now stuck with Obamacare for the foreseeable future. Whether admitted to or not, it’s better to keep what you know works and try to fix it. Trump could boost his approval ratings by fixing Obamacare, not replacing it.
Proving that the Freedom Caucus has its own agenda, sabotaging Ryan’s health care bill slapped rank-and-file Republicans in the face. Freedom Caucus leader Rep. Mark Meadoes (R-N.C.) proved he’s all about leverage and power-brokering, not negotiation. “The irony is the Freedom Caucus, which is very pro-life and against Planned Parenthood, allow P.P. to continue if they stop this plan1” tweeted Trump, deciding to play hardball. Unable to get an up-or-down vote on Ryan’s plan, Trump can now blame the Freedom caucus for not ending Obamacare. Truth be told, Freedom Caucus members want no part of government-subsidized health insurance, believing it’s beyond the Framer’s plans. Trump said yesterday either we get a House vote or let Obamacare stand until it collapses. What Trump doesn’t say is that fixing Obamacare would be easy to do.
Unable to find consensus on the GOP health care bill, Ryan practically stood on his head to push a bad bill through the House. Freedom Caucus members wanted an even worse health care bill, with less benefits and lower government subsidies. If what’s wrong with Obamacare is the rising costs that’s an easy fix by legislating price controls. Whether admitted to or not by the GOP, Obamacare’s a far better health plan for average folks than anything proposed by the GOP. Repealing-and-replacing Obamacare has always been more about a vendetta than solid legislative policy. Obama decided to sacrifice his presidency to provide ordinary citizens an opportunity to have comprehensive medical insurance. Returning back to the days of junk insurance plans, as proposed by the GOP, was not the way to move forward on health care, pushing Republicans back to the drawing board.
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