Concerns over dumping Obamacare growing among GOP lawmakers

[DonViejo]

Source: Associated Press




SATURDAY, JAN 7, 2017 02:45 AM EST

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans are increasingly jittery over rushing to demolish much of President Barack Obama’s health care law without having a GOP alternative that’s ready to go.

While nothing about revamping the nation’s $3 trillion-a-year health care system will be easy, Republican leaders want congressional committees to have legislation dismantling much of Obama’s overhaul ready by late January. They’re hoping Congress can quickly send a measure to incoming President Donald Trump phasing out the law, perhaps a couple of months later.

Crafting a GOP replacement is likely to take longer, thanks to Republican divisions and solid Democratic opposition. With 20 million Americans now covered under Obama’s law, one political nightmare for Republicans would be repealing the statute and then proving unable to pass a new version.

Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., told reporters Friday that Republicans might find themselves in a “box canyon” if they erase the health care law without a substitute in hand.

Read more: http://www.salon.com/2017/01/07/concerns-over-dumping-obamacare-growing-among-gop-lawmakers/

[Vogon_Glory]

1. A Box Canyon, Eh? All The Wild West Audio Books I've Listened To Say That

box canyons are perilous places more often lined with hostile bandits or Apaches ready and eager to do ill to the hapless and bumbling travelers that strayed into them. I am more than willing to do a bit of non-PC cultural appropriation, don war-paint, and shoot arrows at the white-eyes who want to leave our country's poor and working classes sick and destitute from the canyon's rim.

[DFW]

2. Anyone can burn down a house

It takes a little more skill and know-how to build one.

[Danmel]

11. Great analogy

[MyshkinCommaPrince]

15. I keep reminding people of this, out here in the real world

Breaking things is easy. Building and maintaining them is hard. Their side has an advantage over us in this era, for that reason. They get to seem dynamic, they gain the illusion of being on the cultural vanguard, because their agenda is easier to accomplish. That makes it easy to place us on the defensive, make us seem stodgy, old-fashioned, desperate to cling to old ways that look like they aren't working. They work a flip-around sort of thing on us, where they seem more progress-oriented than we are -- in select areas of culture and policy -- while we look conservative.

Seems like the Two Santa Clauses business fits in with this idea.

Forgot part of the point. Now that they have so much power in the culture, they're stuck in a situation where they actually have to maintain things, perhaps even build, or risk exposing their movement as being all about easy destruction and short-term profit. Curious to see how they try to deal with that.

[Nay]

18. I'd like to see if they ever really HAVE to deal with it -- the stupids seem almost epic

in their stupidity. Will they ever wake up, even as they move from their broken frame houses to a cardboard box under an overpass? When their children die of measles? When they have to walk 10 miles to a grocery store to buy one turnip? When?

We know how sociopathic, nasty, craven, and greedy their heroes are; when are they going to know it?

[treestar]

3. I hope it tanks them all

Let them do it and let the consequences make them lose in 2018.

[wryter2000]

9. I have a feeling

Some Republicans in the Senate will save their House members by voting against repeal. Then the House morons can continue to slash and burn without consequences.

[Sunlei]

4. Republicans should be 'concerned'. Some uninsured will die and not everyone will take loss quietly.

Hard enough for families to deal with a sick family member without the horrors of American insurance Corpora ton 'paperwork' and hoops. Uninsured persons have to lose everything they own to pay for health care and medicines that can cost many thousands of dollars a month.

Without insurance some people will die and some Americans will be extremely outraged.

[turbinetree]

5. They are still republican Fascist,

And they should take a pay cut, they only worked 225 days in the last four years out of 720 days, and "all" they did was obstruct and commit treason with the restaurant agenda from 2008, not bad making over in some case $18,500 a month screwing people.

They have a substitute its called Medicare For All, it's right in front of there faces, and they forget that Medicare was passed by the "will of the people" for a reason, not lobbyists

[wryter2000]

6. I've read somewhere (here?) that Rand Paul opposes repeal

He's read the numbers and knows how much it would cost. We only need another one or two Rs to oppose.

My two senators are firmly opposed to repeal. I'm going to call them to thank them. If you're in a red state, it's probably worthwhile to call your senators.

[TexasBushwhacker]

7. I doubt Susan Collins would vote for repeal

without a replacement. She about as centrist as they come.

[wryter2000]

8. Good point

I just remembered I have a brother in Arizona who's on the ACA. I shot him an e-mail about calling his senators.

Some of them have to see how disastrous repeal would be for them. They don't care about anyone else. (Susan Collins excepted.)

[modrepub]

10. They should be concerned

The job loses alone could be enough to push us into a recession. Ignoring the implications of throwing people off their health insurance (which is highly repugnant) dumping the ACA is going to cause a significant contraction in health-care spending. Check out the top employers in your county and I'm sure there are several major hospital systems among them. Less spending on health care means lots of people in the health-care industry are going to have to be let go from their jobs. Large job loses would be devastating; loss of tax revenue plus you have to pay those people unemployment compensation. The Repubs have put a gun to their head and are ready to shoot and I have little faith that they've thought much about the consequences of their actions (or care).

[Nay]

12. What 'concerns' me is that they have had 8 years to craft the perfect proposal for

replacing Obamacare, and it looks like they haven't even thought about it, much less crafted a plan. That tells me what I already knew -- they think there shouldn't BE a plan, and that the predatory insurance and medical corporations are doing just perfectly. For a predatory capitalist state, that is.

[cstanleytech]

13. Thats because alot of them were in favor of such a plan like Obamacare

before he was elected but once he was elected and was for it they reversed course and now they are stuck either they repeal it and piss off millions of americans or they admit its actually a fairly decent plan and simply fix the problem areas that exist with it and piss off the virulent voting base they have been courting.

[Nay]

14. For some Republicans, I agree this is true. As much as DU hates to talk about

it, Obamacare is a pretty creaky, expensive, corporation-pandering way to get insurance to people who can't afford it. Sonny Nay, who makes OK money, has seen his payments go up so fast (and it wasn't cheap to begin with) that he knows he will never, ever get ahead. In fact, he's falling behind.

[not fooled]

17. Yeah

The irony is that Obamacare is Romneycare/Heritagecare. Any rational 'puke (an oxymoron, I know) would favor it. Just like they would support Merrick Garland based on ideology.

The problem is their depth of hatred for President Obama, which fuels all of this nihilist behavior. They not only obstructed him throughout his presidency but want to roll back and then obliterate anything he accomplished. How absurd is that??? What a bunch of petulant,racist jerks.

Sick, pathological group of assholes.

[tclambert]

16. Revamping the American health care system IS easy: Expand Medicare to include everyone.

Lower the eligibility age by a few years every year over about a ten year period. I believe they call this idea Kennedycare, after the late Sen. Ted Kennedy.

Republicans will never support the idea, of course. It would admit that Medicare is a popular and successful government program. And none of their big donors could make a fortune off of it.