Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.

Let me file that under fuck it.

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

A norm that restrains only one side really is not a norm – it is a trap.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

White supremacy is terrorism.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Dear elected officials: Trump is temporary, dishonor is forever.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

In after Baud. Damn.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Jesus watching the most hateful people claiming to be his followers

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Hell hath no fury like a farmer bankrupted.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

Just because you believe it, that does not make it true.

Mediocre white men think RFK Jr’s pathetic midlife crisis is inspirational. The bar is set so low for them, it’s subterranean.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Turn and face the strange

Turn and face the strange

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No one could have predicted:

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan said Wednesday that his health care proposal must change to pass the House, marking a significant retreat from his earlier position that the carefully crafted legislation would fail if altered.

[….]

Ryan backed away on Wednesday from his previous rhetoric of calling the measure’s fate a “binary choice” for Republican lawmakers.

Why did he start off with all his my way or the highway bullshit? Caving in now just makes him look like a low t beta. Paul Ryan is handling this they way Fredo would.

Reader Interactions

112Comments

  4. 4.

    BlueDWarrior

    My answer: they legit do not know how to govern, they just know how to write bills to ostensibly get rich people stuff and decimate existing law. Writing bills that do something positive besides giving rich people more stuff is beyond them. See also Sen. Graham talking about asking Democrats to bail them out if they can’t pull off this repeal-and-half-replace.

  5. 5.

    Fair Economist

    Note: Paul Ryan, the Speaker of the House, will have to change his legislation to get it through the *House*. Somebody seems to lack clout with his caucus.

  7. 7.

    ET

    I am sure part of all this repeal/replace dance the last week or so was so that they could try and get something. That what they got was crap was totally predictable because the dozens of attempts at it over the last few years were crap. Now they have what they have and it as bad as it is and that they can’t get it passed AND they can’t even get some blame the Democrats milage out of the failure.

  9. 9.

    'As You Know' Bob

    “Why did he start off with…”

    Two reasons:
    1) He’s pretty stupid
    and (related)
    2) he’s not very good at governance.

  12. 12.

    Jay Noble

    I remember when Obama was negotiating bills that the complaint was he started at what he thought he could get and took what came out the other side if it wasn’t horrendous. This was generally ok. Ryan started with what he really wanted and now gets to negotiate down to something that something that is still truly horrendous – if we let him.

  13. 13.

    humboldtblue

    @ET:

    “Almost every aspect of the bill was inextricably linked,” says Nancy-Ann DeParle, one of Obama’s top health care advisers. “Every time we tweaked the subsidies or the individual mandate penalties, CBO had to re-estimate the bill to see how it affected coverage. If CBO said that coverage decreased, that was a big problem, because the hospitals’ support for the bill was contingent on getting a high percentage of the uninsured covered.”

    Health care, as the front page health care guy has been writing about for what seems like 12 years, is hard.

    From a link posted in the thread below by Miss Bianca (I think)

  15. 15.

    Turgidson

    I’m sure that the media will glowingly praise the Granny starver for his pragmatic understanding of political reality and willingness to adapt rather than explain that he’s a towering fraud and bungler.

  19. 19.

    Turgidson

    @Jay Noble:

    I’m not sure that’s quite right. The “health reform” he’d like to pass would repeal every letter of the ACA, vocherize Medicare, and abolish Medicaid. Because he’s a cruel asshole who shouldnt be allowed anywhere near the levers of power.

    His shit sandwich bill was what he thought he could get, I think.

  20. 20.

    hovercraft

    @‘As You Know’ Bob:
    But he’s from central casting, he looks the part and sounds the part, so long as you don’t actually look at or listen to what he says. Republicans are all about stagecraft, they loved the “pile at ground zero”, they loved the aircraft carrier, they loved Bosh;s speech in Jackson Square after Katrina. The substance is not important, hence their constant bitching about the number of pages in legislation. They want to live and govern by crib notes.

  22. 22.

    zhena gogolia

    (Repeated from an irrelevant thread.) I called his office today. First you get an opportunity to listen to him pontificate about various topics like the Constitution. Then you get his message — “We want to make this House work for the people who sent us here.” So I began my message, “I’m not one of the people who sent you there, but I am a citizen of the United States of America, and I am a taxpayer, and I want my taxes to pay for health care for Americans.” The slimy little creep. “the people who sent us here” — the real Americans

    I can’t wait to see these people out of power. Will it ever, ever happen?

  25. 25.

    Roger Moore

    @Jay Noble:

    Ryan started with what he really wanted and now gets to negotiate down to something that something that is still truly horrendous – if we let him.

    We don’t get a say in it. He’s negotiating within his own caucus.

  27. 27.

    Duane

    The problem they face is the only better alternative to Obamacare is single payer.Their ideology will not allow them to accept this reality, so they flail away with useless proposals.

  29. 29.

    ET

    @sukabi: The WH didn’t need to work at throwing Boy Wonder under the bus with the repeal/replace legislation because Ryan and the Republicans in Congress would do it themselves. Now leaking video/audio is another matter.

  30. 30.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Jay Noble:
    I think we’ll see the demonstration of why Obama was right and his critics did not understand negotiation. Because by asking for too much, Ryan will get nothing at all.

  32. 32.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Again, poor Paul Ryan’s dreamy blue eyes must turn from his noble visions to the ugly business of voting.

    Paul listens to the left and sighs “do we not have overpasses on our nation’s highways for the poor to quietly starve to death under?” Paul asks. In Paul’s eyes the Left understands nothing, certainly the poor would be better off if we stopped just trying to save their lives.

    Paul listens to the hard right and sighs A man of Paul’s nobility and compassion can not have the blood of hobos on his hand from hunting and eating them like the hard right wants. The Hard Right understands noting; A man of Paul’s intellectual capabilities can not just chase the vagrants while naked and armed only with a knife like a Representative King can.

    Poor, poor Paul. He is just to good for the rest of us.

  35. 35.

    sukabi

    @Duane: really what they really want is for Medicare, ACA, social security, and Medicaid to be abolished. Wealthy get all the benefits of citizenship without paying taxes while not wealthy get screwed.

  39. 39.

    Roger Moore

    @Frankensteinbeck:
    I don’t think Ryan’s problem is his negotiating tactics. His problem is an intractable caucus. They were able to get along as long as Obama was president because they were free to grandstand without any risk of being called on the crazy shit they were demanding. That helped to get them completely hooked on Teh Crazy, so now that they’re in a position to accomplish something they have no fucking clue about how to legislate.

  40. 40.

    PST

    Ryan is giving up on actually passing legislation and returning to what he does best — pantomime. He compromises with his right wing, making the bill more cruel rather than less, even though this makes it impossible to get through the Senate. He gets a bill passed in the House and then what happens is someone else’s fault. Republicans can continue to blame everything on Obama and wait for the implosion to arrive (along with Godot).

  41. 41.

    pattonbt

    But what can the R’s pass? The problem with what they have put forth is that it’s too nasty for the public, but not nasty enough for the crazy R faction. Anything “better” is DOA with the crazy faction and anything worse is DOA with humans (and anything “better”, but worse than the ACA will get zero D support (at least it better not)). Trump has no clue, but his white trash supporters are a bit more clued in now on healthcare and they are the ones who will suffer with any R bill. And now the R’s are on the hook if Obamacare fails, because they’ve said they will let it fail – which is now being seen as not caring to make it better, which is what their rabble really wants now that they don’t have to pretend to hate it because a Obama is in office.

    The D’s must sit on the side lines the whole time simply saying “we will support nothing that isn’t an improvement on the ACA in terms of coverage, cost, regulation, and assistance”. Let the R’s sink alone. But I do think the D’s should be proposing improvements to the ACA, such as single payer / universal healthcare – its the anti-50 votes to repeal the ACA trick – keep putting up better than the ACA over and over and over again. And keep getting it scored by the CBO.

    The lasting legacy of Obamacare may really mean that coverage becomes universal (as a starting point – as we all know, the ACA was only a starting point, not the desired end point). It may still be a long road to something approaching humane, but maybe that first big step is cemented – maybe.

  43. 43.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Jay Noble: . Ryan started with what he really wanted and now gets to negotiate down to something that something that is still truly horrendous – if we let him.

    Yeah, I’m hoping he’s poisoned the well and spooked his gazelles enough to screw whatever he hacks up next.

    MSNBC is showing trump with no sound, which I guess is the best way to show trump, but they could also not show trump. I think Lee Greenwood sang him on to the stage.

    @XTPD: Also: How many people know it was originally a novel?

    I actually read it. In a Fresh Air interview last year, Coppola talked about what he cut out of the novel and working with Puzo (and Brando)

  45. 45.

    TenguPhule

    @zhena gogolia:

    I can’t wait to see these people out of power. Will it ever, ever happen?

    Yes, but some axes and manual head chopping will be required.

  46. 46.

    efgoldman

    @PST:

    Ryan is giving up on actually passing legislation

    Because he never actually knew how. It’s like the scrubbing pots and pans thing.

    @Roger Moore:

    now that they’re in a position to accomplish something they have no fucking clue about how to legislate.

    Part of the same syndrome.

  53. 53.

    Alain the site fixer

    There shall be no pictures tomorrow as I am sick as a dog and haven’t left the bed for much today. They shall return Friday so please send them in!

  54. 54.

    randy khan

    It turns out that not only is health care hard, legislating is hard, too.

    My sense was that this bill was intended as a compromise between the Freedom Caucus zealots and the not-entirely-crazy caucus, but it failed on both counts. Maybe he’ll veer hard right now; maybe he’ll just send it back to committee and have them whack at it to see what happens.

  55. 55.

    Baud

    CNN

    Most voters — 55% — say they disapprove of President Donald Trump’s handling of health care, while just 35% said they approved, according to a new Fox News poll released Wednesday.

    The vast majority — 72% of respondents — said they were familiar with the Republican plan to repeal and replace part of Obamacare. Only 34% of people said they supported that plan.

  58. 58.

    Mike J

    @Alain the site fixer:

    There shall be no pictures tomorrow as I am sick as a dog and haven’t left the bed for much today.

    Given what the next post is about, I hope you have somebody to clean the floors for you.

    Get well soon.

  59. 59.

    efgoldman

    @randy khan:

    this bill was intended as a compromise between the Freedom Caucus zealots and the not-entirely-crazy caucus, but it failed on both counts.

    Whatever he does, he’s now “speaker” in name only.
    Sam Rayburn is spinning in his grave.

  62. 62.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @XTPD:

    Also: How many people know it was originally a novel?

    I must be older than dirt. I thought everybody knew that.

  64. 64.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Looks like the Shit Gibbon is really getting his hate on for the goobers

  67. 67.

    Hunter Gathers

    Putin is going to have a higher approval ratings w\republicans than Trump will by summer.

    Low T Beta Cuck Loser can’t get his agenda passed.

  69. 69.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    Just watching Trump on CBS Evening News, talking about his tax return that got leaked…

    Given what an unstable, volatile character he is, he didn’t seem the least bit upset about it… incredibly calm about it… which makes me believe he might have indeed leaked it himself…

    Gee… why would he have done that? Trying to distract everyone’s attention form something else?

  72. 72.

    Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’m a doofus – I thought everybody knew it was originally a novel by Mario Puzo. I read it also, though it was bit of a mature read for my age at the time, IIRC.

    @SiubhanDuinne: I should read before I reply.

  74. 74.

    JustRuss

    Can you imagine if Obama held a rally every month once he was elected? There wouldn’t be enough fainting couches and clutching pearls for all the Very Serious People shocked(!) by this inappropriate and dictatorial behavior, and right-wingers’ heads would be exploding like popcorn.

  75. 75.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    @Baud: just that Nancy pushed though ACA while Mr. P90X just got stuffed by his own caucus on their decade long legislative objective.

  78. 78.

    rikyrah

    @BlueDWarrior:

    My answer: they legit do not know how to govern, they just know how to write bills to ostensibly get rich people stuff and decimate existing law. Writing bills that do something positive besides giving rich people more stuff is beyond them.

    You nailed it.

  79. 79.

    tobie

    @JustRuss: Was just thinking that too. Only dictators hold rallies this regularly. Why are the networks broadcasting it in full? I can’t imagine he’s saying anything newsworthy. I hope the media outlets see their ratings go down the moment this shitstain is on.

  82. 82.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    at least Ryan can move on to something more popular, like his long time plan to end Medicare.

  83. 83.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    “This decision makes us look weak”

    it makes you look dumb and disorganized, Donnie.

  86. 86.

    rikyrah

    Black Boy Fly: St. Louis Pre-Teen Starts Club To Promote Literacy Among His Peers
    Lifestyle Jessica McKinney | March 15, 2017 – 11:45 am

    After growing tired of selecting books out of his school’s library that featured characters and authors that didn’t look like him, 11-year-old Sidney Keys III decided it was time for a new reading curriculum. So, the St. Louis pre-teen started Books N Bros, a reading club for boys that celebrates black books and promotes literacy.

    Sidney first got the idea after visiting Missouri’s University City bookstore, EyeSeeMe, according to St. Louis Public Radio. The bookstore is known for its large collection of African-American children’s books. Upon his first visit, Sidney’s mother, Winnie Caldwell recorded a video of her son reading in the store, which garnered more than 62,000 views on Facebook. Almost immediately after the impressive video reception, Sidney came up with the idea to form the book club, using EyeSeeMee as the common meeting grounds.

    Since September 2016, Books N Bros has met monthly to discuss one book with a black protagonist that the group votes on for an hour. In the past, the group has read and dissected Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly, Ty Allan Jackson’s The Supadupa Kid, and A Song for Harlem: Scraps of Time by Patricia McKissack. After the hour-long conversation, the boys play video games for thirty minutes at the Microsoft Store nearby.

  89. 89.

    mainmata

    Ryan has never moved a significant piece of legislation (apparently he renamed a post office once). In addition, he is a well-known policy fraud and Ayn Rand devotee. He’s in well over his head, quite aside from the fact that the GOP has been the Party of NO for so long they don’t actually know how to construct positive legislation (as opposed to just cutting taxes and programs and repealing laws). They’re a bunch of ignorant brats.

  92. 92.

    Nora

    @debbie: I liked how she just kept talking when the interviewer tried to distract and interrupt her with right wing talking points. She knew what she wanted to say and she made sure she said it. Too bad she’s not Speaker.

  93. 93.

    Jeffro

    If only…

    …if only they weren’t such frauds…

    …if only they weren’t so devoted to goals that will impoverish, even kill, their own countrymen…

    …if only they weren’t so beholden to the .01%…

    …if only they’d ever had an ounce of compassion for anyone not in their immediate family or circle…

    …if only…if only they’d just jump right into the ol’ dustbin of history, where they belong.

  94. 94.

    Duane

    The problem they face is the only better alternative to Obamacare is single payer.Their ideology will not allow them to accept this reality, so they flail away with useless proposals.@sukabi:

  95. 95.

    rikyrah

    Kay, did you see this?

    Ivanka Trump’s Bitter Scent
    MARCH 15, 2017

    The next time you hear about the sway that Ivanka Trump holds over her father and what a powerful advocate for equal opportunity she is, I want you to remember these numbers:

    Twenty. That’s how many men are in, or poised to join, the president’s cabinet.

    Four. That’s how many women.

    Barack Obama’s first cabinet included seven. Bill Clinton’s, six. George W. Bush’s, four, same as Trump’s, but that was 16 years ago, and he didn’t have an adult daughter who styled herself as both an influential adviser and a feminist hero. Where precisely is the Ivanka Effect?

    She won’t be engaging this riddle in her new book, “Women Who Work,” due out in early May, and I say that not because I know what’s in it — I don’t — but because I know Ivanka, or at least I’ve been watching her closely for a while. She doesn’t take responsibility, not where dear old Dad is concerned. She takes advantage, all the while asking us to be grateful for her presence beside him.
    When he behaves, word goes out that she or her husband, Jared Kushner, had his ear. When he doesn’t, word goes out that it wasn’t their fault, that they can do only so much and that if they hadn’t valiantly moved to Washington, well, think about how much worse off we’d all be.

    There’s a big problem with this spin: His behavior wouldn’t matter if he weren’t sitting on such a lofty throne, and they helped to put him there. They empowered the mad king.

    Now they want credit for mitigating the madness.

  96. 96.

    Another Scott

    @Doug!: Paul remembers what happened to Boehner, and he knows he has no future in politics if he loses the Speakership. He has to pretend he’s powerful, and he knows if they stick together then he is. He has to pass something, but he’s always been at the mercy of his crazy caucus. Now that they don’t have Obama’s veto to protect them, the GOP realizes that they actually have to try to pass something more than King’s crazy “let’s pretend the ACA never happened” bill, and they are finding it is nearly impossible to do. And rolling it out as a giant tax cut that they didn’t even try to defend, while kicking 24M people off of their insurance, and adding a 5:1 “Age Tax” also too, means the optics is horrible. They’re scared, so he’s scared that his house of cards and his political future is blowing away.

    It’s not a done deal yet, but the pressure is working. We need to keep it up.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  97. 97.

    PaulW

    Ryan is starting to realize that if the House can’t pass something this public – and key to the identity of the modern Republican Party of “Fuck Obama” – it looks bad for *him*. So he’s trying to send signals that he’s open to suggestions/compromise to get a bill that WILL pass.

    Tough shit, Ryan. Pardon my Swedish.

    You and the GOP campaigned for 7 years that Obamacare was illegal and broken and wrong and doomed, and that you HAD A PLAN to Repeal and Replace. You based your entire ideology – aside that of “TAX CUTS FOR THE RICH” – around the NEED of the nation to destroy the healthcare fixes that Obama and the Dems spent two years to hammer out. And now that you’re finding that 1) you can’t replace Obamacare with anything further to the Right because that takes us back to when things were WORSE, 2) people suddenly realize what Obamacare actually IS (a functional healthcare system) and are willing to approve it, 3) anything that happens now is ON YOU and you can’t blame the Dems no matter how hard Fox Not-News can try.

    And now Ryan – who was NEVER the political and policy genius his PR people sell him to be – is looking at a party he can’t whip into line one way OR the other.

  98. 98.

    rikyrah

    Kushner’s Felon Father Back at Helm of New York Empire With Two Fellow Inmates

    “It can’t hurt to be doing business with Jared Kushner’s family. It’s a road to the administration.”

    by David Kocieniewski
    and Caleb Melby
    January 27, 2017, 4:00 AM CST

    It’s hard to find work right out of prison. But Avram Lebor and Richard Goettlich walked from their Alabama penitentiary into top jobs at the real estate company then run by Jared Kushner, now President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser. The two men, convicted in separate sprawling fraud schemes, were hired several years ago by his father, Charles Kushner, who had been locked up in the same federal prison with them.

    As 36-year-old Jared Kushner settles into a White House role that includes personnel decisions and Middle East peace, the most extensive organizational experience he has to draw from is his lifetime at the closely held family real estate company, where his father is once again deeply involved. It’s a business where, like Trump’s, family and loyalty loom large. Management at Kushner Cos. has been mercurial, its feuds bruising and its political influence considerable. Recent joint ventures and investments expanded by Jared could lead to opportunities for unseen influence. Given the company’s history, ethics lawyers say, such opportunities merit close watching.

    “It can’t hurt to be doing business with Jared Kushner’s family,” said Larry Noble, general counsel for the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan organization focused on election laws. “It’s a road to the administration. At the very least they’re going to have an inside track.”

  100. 100.

    sukabi

    @Duane: that’s just it though…Ryan and a bunch of the Republican don’t think the gov. Should be involved in providing services / help to folks not in the upper 1% … It’s why they repeatedly try to strip services from low income people, it’s why when they can’t outright kill a program they make it so personally invasive to potential recipients they cut down enrollment. All the drug testing required (in some states) for assistance programs comes from this need to further disenfranchise and stigmatize poor people…

  101. 101.

    Jeffro

    Watching Ryan bungle this whole charade of “repeal and replace”…I’d have to say we’re about as close as we’ll get to Peak Wingnut and live to tell about it. Trumpov in the WH and Ryan as Speaker…yeah, that’s about as close to the edge as it gets…

  102. 102.

    Jeffro

    @Duane:

    The problem they face is the only better alternative to Obamacare is single payer.Their ideology will not allow them to accept this reality, so they flail away with useless proposals.@sukabi:

    If they don’t hurry up and kill the TrumpRyanCare bill, even the Serious People in the DC/NY media will start in with stories – all true! – about how Medicare, Medicaid, and even VA health care are cheaper than ‘regular’ plans with the same or better outcomes.

    They’ll never get to a serious discussion of how badly we fare compared to the other Western democracies, of course, but a boy can dream…

    I’m still shocked that the GOP didn’t cut the ACA-related taxes on the rich by, like, 1% (making up the difference by passing the cost on to the poor, of course), rename it TrumpCare, and call it a day. It was a Heritage plan to begin with, fer chrissakes. Declare victory and move on…

  103. 103.

    Another Scott

    @Jeffro: Depending on what you mean by ‘it’ in the last sentence, you’re either unclear or wrong. ;-)

    Scott Lemieux in 2014:

    The assertion that the ACA was “conceived” at the Heritage Foundation is simply false. I say this with no little humility—since Republicans at the national level have never actually favored any significant plan for health-care reform, I thought the content of the Heritage Plan was irrelevant, but didn’t think to question claims that it was fundamentally similar to the ACA. When I actually took the time to read the Heritage plan, what I found was a proposal that was radically dissimilar to the Affordable Care Act. Had Obama proposed anything like the Heritage Plan, Moore would have been leading daily marches against it in front of the White House—and I would have been right there with him.

    The argument for the similarity between the two plans depends on their one shared attribute: both contained a “mandate” requiring people to carry insurance coverage. But this basic recognition of the free-rider problem does not establish a fundamental similarity between the two plans.

    It’s a good read.

    Saying the PPACA is a Heritage plan, or a Republican plan, really does a great disservice to the Democratic majority who worked for decades to get (nearly) universal coverage passed, and gives the GOP far too much credit. Let’s celebrate our victories!!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  106. 106.

    artem1s

    are you tired of winning yet Paul? hehehehe! I could certainly use some more of this kind of winning.

  107. 107.

    hovercraft

    @p.a.:
    What will they call it’s next iteration?
    I mean this was the Worlds Greatest Health Care legislation so what do call it’s successor? They went all in with that name, so how do you top that ?

  108. 108.

    El Caganer

    @rikyrah: That’s wonderful, and that’s one sharp kid. Back 10-15 years ago when I worked for Children’s Literacy Initiative in Philadelphia, it was a major part of our reading specialist’s selection process to find good books that were culturally appropriate. A lot of people don’t realize that there is a huge (yuge?) number of terrific books out there to meet anybody’s need.

  110. 110.

    Jeffro

    @Another Scott: or perhaps not:

    From Politifact:

    Is the Affordable Care Act really the same as “the Republican plan in the early ’90s?”

    Short answer — sort of. There was a Republican bill in the Senate that looked a whole lot like Obamacare, but it wasn’t the only GOP bill on Capitol Hill, it never came to a vote and from what we can tell, plenty of conservative Republicans didn’t like it.
    …
    1993: Health care takes center stage

    President Bill Clinton took on an ill-fated effort to reform health care in 1993. As the president’s task force (led by First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton) worked behind closed doors to craft solutions to ever-rising health care costs and a growing number of uninsured families, Republicans scrambled to forge an alternative.

    Republican Sen. John Chafee of Rhode Island was the point man. The bill he introduced, Health Equity and Access Reform Today, (yes, that spells HEART) had a list of 20 co-sponsors that was a who’s who of Republican leadership. There was Minority Leader Bob Dole, R- Kan., Sens. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, Richard Lugar, R-Ind., and many others. There also were two Democratic co-sponsors.

    Among other features, the Chafee bill included:

    An individual mandate;

    Creation of purchasing pools;

    Standardized benefits;

    Vouchers for the poor to buy insurance;

    A ban on denying coverage based on a pre-existing condition.

    “You would find a great deal of similarity to provisions in the Affordable Care Act,” Sheila Burke, Dole’s chief of staff in 1993, told PunditFact via email. “The guys were way ahead of the times!! Different crowd, different time, suffice it to say.”

    That said, the Senate plan from 1993 was not identical to the health care law that passed in 2010. The Republican bill did not expand Medicaid as Obamacare does, and it did have medical malpractice tort reform, which the current law does not. In contrast to the current employer mandate, the Chafee bill required employers to offer insurance, but they were under no obligation to help pay for it.

    Policy differences aside, health care scholar and former Clinton adviser Paul Starr at Princeton University said the Affordable Care Act is distinct in one other important way.

    “The Chafee plan did not spell out how increased coverage would be financed,” Starr said. “It was more of a symbolic bill than an actual piece of legislation.”

    In fact, after the bill was introduced, the Senate never took it up again.
    …
    We rate the statement Half True.

    Potato, po-tah-toe. ACA was still similar to some conservative plans out there, and it takes nothing away from the Ds achievement to say so. Onward and upward.

  112. 112.

    Another Scott

    @Jeffro: Thanks for the link. But, unless I’m reading it wrong, that’s not the Heritage (140 page .pdf) plan. The Heritage plan is a lot of verbiage about history and other countries and basic principles. But, my admittedly quick skimming, seems to agree with Lemieux’s major point. It’s not the same as Obamacare. It says things like:

    p.67 (page 75 of the file):

    (Typos mine.)

    Objection #4: Insurance premiums would be unaffordably high for high-risk families

    This objection would also become less valid if insurance policies were restructured to eliminate or reduce coverage for routine services.

    That’s almost diametrically opposed to what Obamacare tries to do. Because Obamacare is about reducing long-term costs by getting people healthier, not just cutting program costs by reducing coverage. And sometimes keeping people healthy means that they need to use the medical system more often to reduce the need for much more expensive outcomes later. Plus, it really doesn’t make much sense that routine treatment would be more expensive than heroic actions later unless the system prevents most “high-risk families” from being covered. And that section is talking about catastrophic coverage which wouldn’t help most people who would still be on the hook for “routine” expenses of tens of thousands of dollars. And the benefits come from “tax relief” that most people who don’t itemize can’t claim.

    It’s not like Obamacare.

    FWIW.

    Thanks again.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

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