JFLNYC wrote:So the lighter the county the more likely it is to support Trump.

Warszawa wrote:So what is up with this repeal/replace only needing a simple majority to pass? What is this budget reconciliation thing and how come Obama couldn't use it?

The tyranny of the timeline
....To get a better idea of why Republican leaders are pursuing this risky strategy, we need to take a look at the calendar and at congressional rules.

Republicans hold 52 Senate seats, so they can’t beat a filibuster on ordinary legislation without winning over at least eight Democrats.

Believing that to be unlikely, they’re trying to push their two big-ticket agenda items — health reform and tax reform — through the budget reconciliation process, for which only a simple Senate majority is necessary.

Here’s the problem: To actually use budget reconciliation, they have to jump through some procedural hoops and do things in a specific order. In their plan, the order was to be:

- Pass one budget resolution with reconciliation instructions for health reform. (Done.)

- Pass their health reform bill through the budget reconciliation process in both houses, and get it signed into law. (We're currently stuck here, still awaiting a bill.)

- Pass a second budget resolution with reconciliation instructions for tax reform. (They had hoped to do this in April or May.)

- Pass tax reform through the budget reconciliation process.

...[R}ank-and-file members of Congress panicked at the idea of ramming through repeal without a replacement being ready, and the president didn’t seem too keen on the idea either. Other Republicans accurately pointed out that the party would need Democratic support to pass the later replacement through normal order, and there was no guarantee they would get it.

So repeal and delay was scrapped. The new plan from GOP leaders, then, was to put as many elements of a replacement as they could in that one health reform reconciliation bill, and to hopefully, maybe, fix the rest later....

....You either have to try to move quickly now or put the rest of the agenda on hold indefinitely to work on crafting a health reform bill with no guarantee of success. GOP leaders appear to be choosing the former.

jerseyhoya wrote:Lamar! likes the House bill. Chair of the relevant committee in the Senate, so that's important.

It sure seems like they're just going to try to fucking pass this thing. Trump is getting engaged, Mitch has promised to bring up whatever the House passes. I would be more excited if I was convinced it was good policy. I don't know a whole hell of a lot about health care policy, but most of the people whom I outsource my thinking to on the issue have reacted negatively.

If they do succeed in just ramming this through I will marvel at and applaud the brazenness.

drsmooth wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:Lamar! likes the House bill. Chair of the relevant committee in the Senate, so that's important.

It sure seems like they're just going to try to fucking pass this thing. Trump is getting engaged, Mitch has promised to bring up whatever the House passes. I would be more excited if I was convinced it was good policy. I don't know a whole hell of a lot about health care policy, but most of the people whom I outsource my thinking to on the issue have reacted negatively.

If they do succeed in just ramming this through I will marvel at and applaud the brazenness.

doesn't having at least 4Rs ready to bail - 5 if you count Rand Paul, 6 if Collins isn't on board which I'm not sure why she would be - make the Senate math difficult?

jerseyhoya wrote:The House math looks pretty terrible too.

drsmooth wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:The House math looks pretty terrible too.

did you see any of the Freedom Caucus presser today? The whole thing was pretty great, but Looie Gohmert ohmigod

drsmooth wrote:

Warszawa wrote:So what is up with this repeal/replace only needing a simple majority to pass? What is this budget reconciliation thing and how come Obama couldn't use it?

too lazy to summarize myself, so cut/pasting a portion of a vox explainer (mods: if over-excerpted: sue me)

The tyranny of the timeline
....To get a better idea of why Republican leaders are pursuing this risky strategy, we need to take a look at the calendar and at congressional rules.

Republicans hold 52 Senate seats, so they can’t beat a filibuster on ordinary legislation without winning over at least eight Democrats.

Believing that to be unlikely, they’re trying to push their two big-ticket agenda items — health reform and tax reform — through the budget reconciliation process, for which only a simple Senate majority is necessary.

Here’s the problem: To actually use budget reconciliation, they have to jump through some procedural hoops and do things in a specific order. In their plan, the order was to be:

- Pass one budget resolution with reconciliation instructions for health reform. (Done.)

- Pass their health reform bill through the budget reconciliation process in both houses, and get it signed into law. (We're currently stuck here, still awaiting a bill.)

- Pass a second budget resolution with reconciliation instructions for tax reform. (They had hoped to do this in April or May.)

- Pass tax reform through the budget reconciliation process.

...[R}ank-and-file members of Congress panicked at the idea of ramming through repeal without a replacement being ready, and the president didn’t seem too keen on the idea either. Other Republicans accurately pointed out that the party would need Democratic support to pass the later replacement through normal order, and there was no guarantee they would get it.

So repeal and delay was scrapped. The new plan from GOP leaders, then, was to put as many elements of a replacement as they could in that one health reform reconciliation bill, and to hopefully, maybe, fix the rest later....

....You either have to try to move quickly now or put the rest of the agenda on hold indefinitely to work on crafting a health reform bill with no guarantee of success. GOP leaders appear to be choosing the former.

drsmooth wrote:the longest and most authoritative tracking poll on ACA attitudes continues to exasperate:

“Russia is a ruse. I have nothing to do with Russia. Haven’t made a phone call to Russia in years. Don’t speak to people from Russia,” Trump said during a February 16 press conference. He said he contacts with Russia were limited to talking twice to Vladimir Putin after election day.
On February 20, Trump spokesperson Sarah Sanders flatly declared that the Trump campaign had “no contacts” with Russia.

Trump personally met with the Russian ambassador on April 27, 2016, prior to a major foreign policy speech. The Wall Street Journal, in a report that was little-noticed at the time but was recently picked up by AMERICABlog News, reported the meeting last year.
A few minutes before he made those remarks, Mr. Trump met at a VIP reception with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Ivanovich Kislyak. Mr. Trump warmly greeted Mr. Kislyak and three other foreign ambassadors who came to the reception.
Kislyak, according to multiple contemporaneous news reports, was seated in the front row. It was an invitation-only event.

swishnicholson wrote:

drsmooth wrote:the longest and most authoritative tracking poll on ACA attitudes continues to exasperate:

I believe it was that famous Canadian economic philosopher J. Mitchell who had the most pertinent words abut this...