House GOP Has Three Options on Health Care

[corbe]

House GOP Has Three Options on Health Care

March 24, 2017 7:45 AM EDT
By
Ramesh Ponnuru



If House Republicans still can’t pass their health-care bill after postponing the vote on it, they will have three choices available.

Option one is to keep trying to modify the bill to win majority support: making it more generous to pick up moderates, or adding some deregulation to court conservatives. The basic structure of the bill, though, limits Republicans’ room to maneuver.

The bill was put together by starting with repeal of Obamacare’s spending and taxes, and then adding and subtracting elements to make the legislation work both substantively and politically. The product Republicans came up with, though, didn’t work particularly well either way. It reduced coverage levels, but didn’t do as much as Republicans wanted to lower premiums. No amount of tweaking is going to change the basic picture of a bill with which no one is very happy.

Option two is to drop health care for the time being -- which President Trump is threatening to do if the bill fails. That retreat would be embarrassing after seven years of pledges to kill Obamacare, would anger many conservative activists, and would reduce the power of both Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan.

It’s also not clear what other items Republicans could profitably take up afterward. Some supply-siders have complained all along that Republicans should have been advancing pro-growth tax reform instead of health-care legislation. But Republicans are deeply divided on a central provision of Ryan’s tax plan: a “border adjusted” business tax that is supposed to raise enough revenue to finance other parts of the measure. Nor is it clear that tax reform would improve Republicans’ political standing. Its direct benefits are concentrated on the country’s highest earners, and whether it will boost the economy substantially is a matter of speculation.

Other Republicans want to turn to the big infrastructure bill of Trump’s dreams. But there’s no legislation on it, and Republicans are even more divided on it than they are on health care and taxes.

If Republicans decide to leave health care, look for them to package it as a change in the sequencing of their strategy to repeal and replace Obamacare. They have been saying that passing the House bill is phase one, and phase two would be regulatory changes from the Department of Health and Human Services. They could say that they had decided to implement the regulatory changes first and then resume legislating. They might also hope that Obamacare will grow more unpopular, making it easier to repeal and replace it later.

Option three is to try a new approach on health care rather than either persisting on their current course or giving up. House Republicans have left deregulatory provisions out of their bill for fear, they say, that the Senate parliamentarian would rule that those provisions made the whole bill subject to filibuster.

<..snip..>

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-03-24/house-gop-has-three-options-on-health-care

[Night Hides Not]

Option 4: resign in the best interests of the American people.

[XenaLee]

All I know is.... the GOP and Trump ran on repealing Obamacare.  Not on "fixing" it.  Not on patching it up.  And not on Afro-engineering it into yet another clusterfuk, only this time with the Trump/GOP label on it.

If they would just do what they promised to do (previous to how many elections now?)....

I think things would work out, eventually.  Going back to how it was pre-Obamacare would be much better than how things are now....due to the deliberately orchestrated disaster by Democrats. 

If they can't repeal it, let it die its own slow, excruciating death.... while working on the aftermath solution which is NOT single payer.

[Bigun]

All I know is.... the GOP and Trump ran on repealing Obamacare.  Not on "fixing" it.  Not on patching it up.  And not on Afro-engineering it into yet another clusterfuk, only this time with the Trump/GOP label on it.

If they would just do what they promised to do (previous to how many elections now?)....

I think things would work out, eventually.  Going back to how it was pre-Obamacare would be much better than how things are now....due to the deliberately orchestrated disaster by Democrats. 

If they can't repeal it, let it die its own slow, excruciating death.... while working on the aftermath solution which is NOT single payer.

It really is just that simple!  Show some integrity and simply do what you said you would do!

[Free Vulcan]

Option 3 for $5 trillion Alex...

[Right_in_Virginia]

All I know is.... the GOP and Trump ran on repealing Obamacare. 

Actually @XenaLee, the President ran on repealing and replacing Obamacare.  Replacing Obamacare takes 60 votes in the Senate ... hence the three step process: (Step 2 is accomplished by EO's signed by the President or Sec. Price to override the EO's signed by the Obama administration and three bills relating to the third step have already passed in the House)

[Bigun]

Actually @XenaLee, the President ran on repealing and replacing Obamacare.  Replacing Obamacare takes 60 votes in the Senate ... hence the three step process: (Step 2 is accomplished by EO's signed by the President or Sec. Price to override the EO's signed by the Obama administration and three bills relating to the third step have already passed in the House)

Except for the fact that Republicans now control the senate and can do away with that 60 vote requirement that the founders never envisioned in the first place any time they like you would be correct!

That 60 vote BS is pure sophistry as it is!

[corbe]

Actually @XenaLee, the President ran on repealing and replacing Obamacare.  Replacing Obamacare takes 60 votes in the Senate ... hence the three step process: (Step 2 is accomplished by EO's signed by the President or Sec. Price to override the EO's signed by the Obama administration and three bills relating to the third step have already passed in the House)

   Actually, @Right_in_Virginia Senators Cruz and Lee have stated publicly Phase 2 and 3 could be included by the Byrd rule through the Senate parliamentarian and if she won't go along, VP Pence, as President of the Senate, could override her, bypassing the 60 vote requirement.   
   Sure it's a can of worms I'd rather not open, but desperate times call for desperate measures.