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You are here: Home / Anderson On Health Insurance / Keep on calling

Keep on calling

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The only way that Cassidy-Graham is truly and fully dead is if Senate Majority Leader McConnell removes the reconciliation instruction from the Senate calendar. Right now it is mostly dead but that also means it is somewhat alive. The prime targets are Senators Murkowski, Capito, Portman, and Gardner. If they are your Senators your calls are way more powerful than my calls.

The odds are in our favor, but we can ask the Atlanta Falcons how that can work out. So keep on calling.

Reader Interactions

43Comments

  2. 2.

    Jeffro

    Hey and while we’re calling, folks please be sure to stress the urgency of getting supplies & aid workers to Puerto Rico and USVI, stat.

  4. 4.

    rikyrah

    ll numbers begin 202-224:
    Graham 5971
    Cassidy 5824
    Capito 6472
    Murkowski 6665
    Collins 2523
    Gardner 5941
    Flake 4521
    McCain 2235
    Portman 3353

    — Scott Dworkin (@funder) September 20, 2017

  5. 5.

    rikyrah

    Scott says:
    September 20, 2017 at 11:28 am
    John, you don’t have to fax from your printer. Use faxzero.com. You fax your letter from your computer. The Senate and Reps fax numbers are preloaded and all you have to do is change the Dear so and so part. Real easy. You can hit 2 senators and a rep in about 5 minutes tops.
    Faxzero.com allows you to compose a fax at their web page. They have lists of all the senators and reps, organized by state – and you aren’t limited to choosing your own state’s officials.

  6. 6.

    rikyrah

    Jim, Foolish Literalist says:
    September 20, 2017 at 11:29 am

    That is what “they” say. I think Indivisible is one of the “they”. Try RESISTBOT– Fax from your phone. I send a fax through them every day. Call in the morning, fax in the afternoon.

  7. 7.

    rikyrah

    MomSense says:
    September 20, 2017 at 11:44 am
    @Mike:

    YES I was just about to post it. I get fireworks now as an “elite” resister.

    Text “resist” to 504-09. Super easy and quick.

  9. 9.

    rikyrah

    RT if you agree w/ @jimmykimmel then CALL THE @SenateGOP: Oppose #GrahamCassidy & stop #Trumpcare: 844-859-3118 pic.twitter.com/jx9ZLM2PF4
    — MoveOn.org (@MoveOn) September 26, 2017

  12. 12.

    Elizabelle

    At the very least, we should try to get Murkowski to come out, publicly, against this. You would think it would be in her benefit (and she can explain to her constituents that she is not taking a bribe to hurt voters in the lower 48; some of them might care).

  13. 13.

    Chris

    +1 on the Princess Bride reference, and more generally, absolutely “this.” If I wake up on October 1st and this bill still hasn’t passed, then I’ll breathe easier. I don’t trust McCain not to suddenly say “OK, the CBO preliminarily graded it, that’s procedure enough for me, I’m now for it.” That may be paranoid, but c’mon. They’re Republicans.

  14. 14.

    Elizabelle

    @Chris: I think McCain is a solid no. It’s not just the CBO score, it’s the legislating on the fly. He’s serious about returning to Regular Order, with procedures and lots of hearings.

    Saw that McCain’s doctors have told him his prognosis is “grim.” Does he want to be remembered for gutting peoples’ healthcare, and enabling the Koch Brothers and other fiends? Maybe not.

  15. 15.

    Shalimar

    On the story about Collins being the 4th vote against, I tried to point out on Rawstory that Paul and Cruz don’t have the guts to be the deciding vote against so we still need one more no vote. I was basically shouted down by people linking to a politico story with Hatch saying they were giving up. I still don’t buy it.

  17. 17.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Chris: I suspect that McCain is committed to the gauzy romanticism of his swan song, which conveniently also serves his decades old (I believe) hatred of Mitch McConnell, and his younger but probably more intense hatred of donald trump. Murkowski makes me a bit nervous– the only way her dithering makes sense is if she still wants them to know her vote can be got.

  20. 20.

    Sab

    Portman is one of my Senators. I have five of his offices on speed-dial. I call every office every day. Complete waste of my time. And he still has no opinion about any piece of legislation, even the bills he helped draft.

    Last election Americans for Prosperity funded a huge as campaign to smear his opponent for the entire summer before the election. There was no actual man inside the candidates suit. The Kochs own him.

    There is no there there, but he still gets to vote, and represent my state in Congress. Grrr.

    He is such an empty suit: he was Bush’s Director of Office of Budget and Management in the run-up to the financial crisis in 2008, back when deficits didn’t matter. There is no there there inside the business suit this man is wearing.

  21. 21.

    JMG

    The Republicans seem to be moving towards letting this one die, then passing a new budget resolution including both the big tax cuts and gutting Medicaid and Obamacare, figuring that their heretics could never resist voting for tax cuts for the wealthy. Maybe that’ll work, although it seems like a formula for making both proposals extremely unpopular at the same time.

  22. 22.

    Roger Moore

    @rikyrah:

    Trumpcare looks dead, but the margin of its defeat matters.

    The only problem with this is that if it looks as if the margin will be anything but very close, they’ll never hold a vote so nobody will be allowed to know how badly it would have gone down. I agree we should keep trying to run up the score so the Republicans can’t win by winning back one of the few no votes, but I don’t think that will prevent them from revisiting it later. They came within one vote of pushing it through before, so running up the score now won’t be enough to scare them away. The only way that will happen is if they pay a big electoral price.

  23. 23.

    Shalimar

    @Roger Moore: The first chance of that electoral defeat is Alabama in December. Jones has a chance, and Republicans are currently savaging each other. I still have a house in Alabama, but I rent it out to relatives rather than living there so I unfortunately can’t vote for Jones.

  25. 25.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Sab: It really is amazing that Democrats will keen and wail about how tragic it is to have such uninspiring candidates, while Republicans are perfectly content with the flavorless glutinous mush of people like Rob Portman and Mitch McConnell.

  26. 26.

    Roger Moore

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Murkowski makes me a bit nervous– the only way her dithering makes sense is if she still wants them to know her vote can be got.

    I don’t think that’s quite true. The bigger part of the calculus is that they don’t want to be seen as disloyal. Like so many things, they want it dead, but they don’t want their fingerprints on the murder weapon. Their best hope is something like a firing squad, where so many people are killing it that no single one of them can be held up as the guilty party. But unless enough of them come forward to get there, they’re each going to be timid about announcing their opposition.

    I think McConnell is trying to play that kind of timidity to get it passed. He wants them all to be too afraid to come forward, so they each think they’d be the critical vote, even though if every Senator who had serious reservations were willing to vote no they could kill it decisively.

  27. 27.

    JMG

    Murkowski told a reporter about 20 minutes ago that she doesn’t believe there will be a vote.@FlipYrWhig: As the old saying goes “Democrats fall in love, Republicans fall in line.”

  29. 29.

    ThresherK

    Calling it now: About 40 worthless R Senators are gonna keep McCain, Collins, +c in Edible Arrangements and Hickory Farms gift baskets for the rest of ever, because our press corps will never ask those solid “yea” R’s how they can vote for this piece of dogshit.

  30. 30.

    ThresherK

    @FlipYrWhig: How many Democrats inspire the Beltway Inbreds to write of them as “inspiring”? Remember, a Dem with 52% approval and an R with 36% approval achieve the same narrative from our press.

  32. 32.

    FlipYrWhig

    @ThresherK: The media is hopeless but even beyond that I feel like left-leaning everyday people complain about not feeling INSPIRED _a lot_. But how many charismatic Republicans are there? Even if for the sake of argument we count Trump as inspiring, charismatic, etc., or at least energizing, who else on their side even has a personality? Graham? McCain? Sasse? Flake? This is what grading on a curve looks like. McConnell is a blob. Cornyn, Thune, Barrasso, Collins, Cassidy, Rubio, Gardner, Portman… these are people who _on a good day_ are boring boring boring. Doesn’t seem to hinder them particularly. I don’t know why “we,” for corresponding large values of “we,” care so much.

  33. 33.

    Sab

    My other senator, Sherrod Brown, is extremely inspiring. Plus, I firmly believe that he is a secret policy wonk, although he rarely plays one on tv.

  34. 34.

    Ohio Mom

    @Sab: Yes, Sherrod is a policy wonk, especially on trade issues. Plus, when you call his office, his interns answer promptly and cheerfully. Unlike say, Portman’s staff.

    @Sab: Nothing to add to this. The most positive thing I can say about Portman is he looks the part.

    @rikyrah: I will call later today, I promise. I just had to take mental health morning.

  36. 36.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Senate Majority Leader McConnell removes the reconciliation instruction from the Senate calendar

    This is the like the scene at the end of Trading Places were the old rich guy was screaming about keeping the exchange open.

  38. 38.

    Another Scott

    @Amir Khalid:

    Odds were in my favor
    I had him five to one
    When that nag came around the track
    Sure enough we had won

    Here’s hoping that it turns out the same way for us, also too.

    :-)

    But I agree with David. We have to make sure it’s dead.

    And then we’ll have to start all over again in the next term, until we can vote these monsters out of office. They won’t give up, and we can’t give up.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  39. 39.

    Ohio Mom

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: I don’t know what this means. These Senate procedures are too arcane for me.

    I called Portman and Murkowski, and Collins to say thank you. Were these wasted efforts? I don’t buy that old saying that no kind gesture is ever wasted. Depends on the recipient.

  41. 41.

    Sab

    @FlipYrWhig: Pentecostals also used to be religious, hence no extreme rudeness, or even less mild rudeness. Lots of not religious masquerading as religious behind the right wing. Authoritarian nut jobs posing as religious.

    I ‘m a professing Christian.I was married for ten years to a Jewish guy who didn’t share my religion but was in sync with my moral values. I know a lot of Christians. I get monthly visits from the Jehovahs Witnesses whose religion I think is nuts but I think they are sweet and believing and I admire their commitment.

    Religiously I don’t know who is what lately. Whack job right wing Catholics complaining about the Pope lately although a huge part of being Catholic was following the Pope. I know my husband did it with difficulty for decades during George Ringo (John Paul 2 after politicals in the Vatican murdered the leftist John Paul 1) and Ratz (misnamed Pope Benedict. I am sure God swore when Ratz got named pope.)

  42. 42.

    TenguPhule

    @JMG:

    The Republicans seem to be moving towards letting this one die, then passing a new budget resolution including both the big tax cuts and gutting Medicaid and Obamacare, figuring that their heretics could never resist voting for tax cuts for the wealthy.

    Yes, but it would buy us 3 months grace to kill this version.

  43. 43.

    ColoradoGuy

    @Sab:

    When did boorish rudeness become the Republican Brand? They used to be the party of Country Club extreme manners.

    After Rush Limbaugh came on the air in the late Eighties, and then multiplied 10X when Newt Gingrich gained control of Congress in 1994 by using Goebbels-class propaganda on all Democrats.

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