I’m assuming that the Freedom Caucus will get Trump to cave in completely to their demands on AHCA, even if those demands make it impossible for the Senate to pass it without a filibuster. I’d like to think that at a certain point, these turn off the GOP moderates. Maybe that’s starting to happen:
The Republican push to replace Obamacare – backed forcefully by President Donald Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan —is in jeopardy, as a last-ditch bid by the White House to win conservative support late Wednesday appeared to repel moderates.
Moderate Republicans huddled with Speaker Paul Ryan and House leaders for nearly two hours Wednesday night but emerged without consensus. Immediately after exiting the meeting, Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.), leader of the House’s moderate Tuesday Group, panned the bill, known as the American Health Care Act.
“After careful deliberation, I cannot support the bill and will oppose it,” Dent said in a statement upon leaving the meeting. “I believe this bill, in its current form, will lead to the loss of coverage and make insurance unaffordable for too many Americans, particularly for low-to-moderate income and older individuals.”
craigie
Can we ban the phrase “moderate Republican” from the lexicon? We might as well be talking about flying unicorns at this point.
amk
There is a moderate caucus in gop ?
Yarrow
WTF? That’s the kind of thing Democrats say.
BBA
I’m going to renew my prediction of this thing passing by 3 AM voice vote with no quorum. It’s become too big to fail.
smintheus
After toting up all the angry messages he received, Dent announced their results. FTFY
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@amk: a caucus of one? the magic number is 23, right?
this is a surprise
efgoldman
@amk:
Apparently the Villagers think so.
The Villagers think a lot of wrong things.
BlueDWarrior
I figure they will find a way to pass something out of the House; God knows what that does to passing it via reconciliation in the Senate.
craigie
Is our Republicans learning?
Doubtful.
smintheus
@Yarrow: Only a few days ago, Dent was saying that one of the things he liked about the bill was that it rolled back mandates and cut back on subsidies. The guy is a faux moderate because his district used to be and to some degree still is middle of the road in its politics.
efgoldman
@Yarrow:
Also the kind of thing that politicians who’s state has five times the number of people on ACA and medicaid than Shitgibbon’s winning margin, and would like to be re-elected.
amk
@craigie: I think some are thanks to the ‘shouty and paid’ dem protestors in their districts. Keep up the pressure, people.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
hmmm…..
I guess if you’re a far right Republican, you can always find some way any bill is too far to the left. Maybe McConnell really is shoving this back on Ryan.
Kay
We have a new number! No more 27%. I feel like the country can bear 19% crazy. That’s manageable.
BlueDWarrior
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: it could be a situation where they lose a dozen moderates and a dozen hardliners and that sinks it.
No telling though…
amk
@Kay: I saw another poll saying over 80% of rethugs still believe that lie even after the cong hearing.
craigie
@amk:
Sure, but 81% of actual humans apparently don’t believe it
TenguPhule
@craigie: seconded. We’re better off looking for unicorns.
TenguPhule
@Kay: not when its running the country.
socraticsilence
David Young of Iowa is apparently a “No” now after the last few days of concessions to the Freedom Caucus:
Mnemosyne
@amk:
Okay, either one of those polls has to be wrong, or they’re asking different questions, because 70 points is one hell of a margin of error.
different-church-lady
@Kay: We still have quite a problem here — when combined with the recent Gallup poll, it means 20% think he lied but continue to approve anyway.
cain
My twitter feed seems to be on fire from women’s rights groups.. one of them said that the bill forces women to get a job 8 weeks after giving birth or lose medcaid. This is because they believe that only blah’s and latinas don’t work after giving birth. Cripes. We are fucked. (I haven’t seen evidence of this.. looking to see that before going full bore outrage)
Fair Economist
@amk:
Last year I saw somebody say there were two left – Dent and Peter King. Admittedly, you need a really loose definition of “moderate” to include Peter King.
TenguPhule
@Fair Economist:
The Republican version of moderate is the one who thinks the rape victim should at least be of age before raping her to death.
pattonbt
I still think they’ll all cave and pass some sort of shit sandwich. But the R’s have always been in a quandary on this. Truth is, none of them want the entitlement at all. But the entitlement is now there. And one part of the R party wants to be extremely and overtly cruel while the rest want to be stealth cruel. And given none of them wanted any health care entitlement to begin with – once Boss Tweet said “we’ll get you the bestest, cheapest, most amazing healthcare in place of O Care ever AND no one will lose coverage” they were all dead. Trump, as with all things he touches, bankrupted them (and he’ll skate).
It’s just f’ing pathetic to see what is happening. The bill put forth is cruel and harmful (thank god for the CBO) and the reason it wont get through a friendly House, Senate and Presidency is that it is not cruel and harmful enough.
randy khan
@BBA:
I’m pretty sure the Dems are ready for such an attempt. There are some helpful rules on quorum calls, as I remember.
JGabriel
Politico via DougJ @ Top:
Of course it will, Charlie. That’s the intent. What part of being Republican do you not understand?
Emily68
Frank LoBiondo, of NJ’s 2nd district, says he’ll vote against it. I don’t live in NJ and I have no idea if he’s a nut-case guy or not, but I think he predates the tea party. This is part of his post on Facebook: