How Each Senator Voted on Full Obamacare Repeal-and-Replace [list]

[HonestJohn]

You don't realize that Pelosi completely shut Republicans from having any say or input in the ACA don't you?

Looking back, she was 'open' to Republican input.  But the Republicans boycotted. 

Which then saved her from having to find ways to ignore the suggestions.

Only after the bill was crafted did the Republicans put together a proposal (1 or 5 pages, I can't remember... but too short to be a real bill) to claim there was an alternative.

[Jazzhead]

@truth_seeker @skeeter @Jazzhead

Yes, and you don't give a hoot that someone else is paying for that, do you?  As long as you've got yours, you don't care that hospitals are mandated by law without reimbursement.  It's fine for the American people to mandate this, just don't make them share in the cost, eh?

Too many folks have rose colored glasses about life before ObamaCare.   Millions without the security of health insurance,  hospitals burdened with the cost of uncompensated care,  and a job market paralyzed by the arbitrary nature of our employer-based insurance system.   As conservatives we should be in favor of a dynamic economy where folks have the mobility to go to where the jobs and opportunities are.   But for folks in their forties and older used to be chained to their jobs, afraid of leaving and being unable to get health insurance. 

ObamaCare at least held the promise of fixing some of that dysfunction.  It hasn't worked, but that's the point of the GOP reform bills -  to breed more choices in the individual marketplace while preserving a system of community rating. 

Nothing's free,  TS.   Not medical insurance, and certainly not medical treatment.   Costs get paid for by someone;  the policy question is how to allocate such costs fairly.   Uncompensated care ultimately gets paid for by folks with insurance paying higher premiums.   Is that fair?   That's the chief attraction of single payer - it allocates those costs among all taxpayers, not just those "lucky" enough to have health insurance.    If that strikes you as socialism, then support the private sector alternative of an individual mandate,  to force the free riders to participate in the insurance market.   

[Jazzhead]

Looking back, she was 'open' to Republican input.  But the Republicans boycotted. 

Which then saved her from having to find ways to ignore the suggestions.

Only after the bill was crafted did the Republicans put together a proposal (1 or 5 pages, I can't remember... but too short to be a real bill) to claim there was an alternative.

The GOP didn't cover itself in glory with respect to the ACA -  they wouldn't lift a finger, just as the Dems won't lift a finger now to fix the mess they created.

This is politics run amok, partisanship as the defining value of public service.   It didn't used to be that way.  Look at ERISA, the federal law of employee benefits.   A bi-partisan bill that has stood the test of time.   It wasn't that long ago that politics was the means to an end - the crafting of sound policy.  Now it's bloodsport,  tit for tat and to hell with those damaged in the process.   

[txradioguy]

The GOP didn't cover itself in glory with respect to the ACA -  they wouldn't lift a finger, just as the Dems won't lift a finger now to fix the mess they created.

Since you seem hell bent on using revisionist history to try and lay part of the blame on Republicans for the ACA while deflecting any blame from your Lib friends let me remind you and everyone else of something. 

Because all revenue bills have to originate in the House, the Senate found a bill that met those qualifications: HR3590, a military housing bill. They essentially stripped the bill of its original language and turned it into the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), aka Obamacare.

<snip>


Senate Leader Harry Reid cut a deal with Pelosi: the House would pass the Senate bill without any changes if the Senate agreed to pass a separate bill by the House that made changes to the Senate version of Obamacare.  This second bill was called the Reconciliation Act of 2010. So the House passed PPACA, the Senate bill, as well as their Reconciliation Act. At this point PPACA was ready for the President to sign, but the Senate still needed to pass the Reconciliation Act from the House.


Therefore in order to pass the Act Senate Democrats decided to change the rules.  They declared that they could use the “Reconciliation Rule (this is a different “reconciliation” than the House bill).  This rule was only supposed to be used for budget item approvals so that such items could be passed with only 51 votes in the Senate, not the usual 60.  Reconciliation was never intended to be used for legislation of the magnitude of Obamacare. But that didn’t stop them.

So both of the “Acts” were able to pass both houses of Congress and sent to President Obama for his signature without a single Republican vote in favor of the legislation.  The American system of governance was shafted.  To quote Democrat Rep. Alcee Hastings of the House Rules Committee during the bill process: “We’re making up the rules as we go along.”

http://www.briansussman.com/politics/how-obamacare-became-law/


What you call the GOP not lifting a finger others would call principled Conservatism. 

Pelosi Reid and the rest of the Libs on the Hill used every trick in the book to pass something that Americans clearly didn't want or need and the Dems knew would not pass on its own merits.  So they stripped already passed pieces of legislation and inserted into them the language that gave us the disastrous Obamacare that America suffers under today.

The GOP was right for not wanting to get near the thing...and that's even after Pelosi shut them out of the process of drafting the original legislation.

But hey you go ahead and live in your revisionist world where the mean old GOP wants people to die in the streets.

This is politics run amok, partisanship as the defining value of public service.   It didn't used to be that way.  Look at ERISA, the federal law of employee benefits.   A bi-partisan bill that has stood the test of time.   It wasn't that long ago that politics was the means to an end - the crafting of sound policy.  Now it's bloodsport,  tit for tat and to hell with those damaged in the process.

You can thank your fellow Liberals...mostly...for the sorry state of politics today.

[txradioguy]

Looking back, she was 'open' to Republican input.  But the Republicans boycotted. 

Which then saved her from having to find ways to ignore the suggestions.

Only after the bill was crafted did the Republicans put together a proposal (1 or 5 pages, I can't remember... but too short to be a real bill) to claim there was an alternative.

Read what I posted above.  It was a fig leaf.  In the end Pelosi and Reid did a bait and switch to get a very unpopular piece of legislation passed that wouldn't have stood up on it's own merits.

[skeeter]

Better half a loaf than none at all. Now, we get Obamacare because of all the principled conservatives.

Sens. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.; Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va.; Susan Collins, R-Maine; Dean Heller, R-Nev.; John McCain, R-Ariz.; Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska; and Rob Portman, R-Ohio

Many adjectives and attributive adjectives have been used to describe these senators. "Principled conservatives" has never been one.

[Jazzhead]

Since you seem hell bent on using revisionist history to try and lay part of the blame on Republicans for the ACA while deflecting any blame from your Lib friends let me remind you and everyone else of something.


What you call the GOP not lifting a finger others would call principled Conservatism. 

Pelosi Reid and the rest of the Libs on the Hill used every trick in the book to pass something that Americans clearly didn't want or need and the Dems knew would not pass on its own merits.  So they stripped already passed pieces of legislation and inserted into them the language that gave us the disastrous Obamacare that America suffers under today.

The GOP was right for not wanting to get near the thing...and that's even after Pelosi shut them out of the process of drafting the original legislation.

But hey you go ahead and live in your revisionist world where the mean old GOP wants people to die in the streets.


You can thank your fellow Liberals...mostly...for the sorry state of politics today.

No, I can thank both liberals and conservatives equally for making politics poisonous.  The libs may have started it ("Robert Bork's America . . . "), but conservatives play the tit for tat game just as well.

ObamaCare is a disaster because it had no Republican input.  It reflected no conservative priorities and gained no conservative support.  Now,  the disaster's apparent and the Dems are returning the favor and refusing to vote for anything supported by the GOP.  Tit for tat.  Meanwhile, the ACA will remain the law of the land.  As for folks dying in the streets - no one in Washington gives a damn.   

It's poisonous and all sides share the blame.   

[roamer_1]

If that strikes you as socialism, then support the private sector alternative of an individual mandate,  to force the free riders to participate in the insurance market.

Force is not private sector.
What you prescribe IS socialism, either way.

[txradioguy]

Force is not private sector.
What you prescribe IS socialism, either way.

Calling certain people free riders is Lib speak as well.

[Jazzhead]

If free riders cannot be addressed in the context of a private insurance market, then the only practical alternative is single payer.

Pick your poison, and stop thinking there's a magic bullet.  There's not.  This is difficult, complex policy, because folks come from all walks of life and conditions of health.   And the alternative of allowing the less virtuous to die in the streets is not something that ANY American should favor.  There but for the grace of God go you and I.   

[IsailedawayfromFR]

You might care if you were one of the millions of working poor receiving Medicaid or subsidized individual insurance through an ACA exchange.   Yes, the Senators want to preserve their jobs,  but before you dismiss them as cynical consider how you would react if a federal law you've come to rely on were to be yanked out from under you.   Say,  Social Security or protection of your right to own guns.   The world isn't all about you and your priorities.   A straight and, as you insist, immediate repeal of ObamaCare would harm a whole hell of a lot of your fellow Americans.   The ACA must be fixed,  and that includes rational transitional rules that aren't heartless.

a really asinine comment.

Most people in this country had a good enough healthcare insurance program until Obamacare upended it.  You care little for them obviously.

It's how libs work - bring down the successful majority as they are 'lucky' or 'don't deserve it'.

And of course they lie to persuade 'If you like your doctor, you can keep him'.

[Jazzhead]

Most people in this country had a good enough healthcare insurance program until Obamacare upended it.  You care little for them obviously.

Of course I do.  That's why I want the law fixed.  Yes, many were hurt by ObamaCare, but don't kid yourself - many were helped too.   You can't just rip up the law and not offer a replacement for those who are now covered who didn't have coverage before.   Entitlement programs have a way of creating their own constituencies.   Nobody said it would be easy.   

[IsailedawayfromFR]

But full repeal isn't possible.  The votes aren't there.  It's time to move on, unless you're happy with ObamaCare remaining the law of the land.   

It's time for a pragmatic solution, an incremental fix that's politically possible, and moves the ball in a conservative direction.

here's a pragmatic solution: defund it and let it die the ignominious death it deserves.

[roamer_1]

If free riders cannot be addressed in the context of a private insurance market, then the only practical alternative is single payer.

Pick your poison, and stop thinking there's a magic bullet.  There's not.  This is difficult, complex policy, because folks come from all walks of life and conditions of health.   And the alternative of allowing the less virtuous to die in the streets is not something that ANY American should favor.  There but for the grace of God go you and I.

This is dumb. It does nothing to address your 'free riders'. It just jacks up everyone who was paying insurance by FIVE TIMES, with a 10 times greater deductible, making it wholly and utterly useless.

Like all socialism, it lowers all boats.
There ARE free market solutions, there are deregulating solutions. solutions that would actually work instead of massively growing federal government, which never does anything well or efficiently.

Your way is doom.

[IsailedawayfromFR]

No, I can thank both liberals and conservatives equally for making politics poisonous.  The libs may have started it ("Robert Bork's America . . . "), but conservatives play the tit for tat game just as well.

ObamaCare is a disaster because it had no Republican input.  It reflected no conservative priorities and gained no conservative support.

another worthless comment.

Government run healthcare in no manner shape or form is conservative, not even close.  There are zero conservative priorities in anything like that, ever.

[IsailedawayfromFR]

If free riders cannot be addressed in the context of a private insurance market, then the only practical alternative is single payer.

Pick your poison, and stop thinking there's a magic bullet.  There's not.  This is difficult, complex policy, because folks come from all walks of life and conditions of health.   And the alternative of allowing the less virtuous to die in the streets is not something that ANY American should favor.  There but for the grace of God go you and I.

define 'less virtuous'.

[Jazzhead]

Your way is doom.

I haven't stated what "my way" is.   I've merely voiced general support for the GOP reform bills as vast improvements on ObamaCare - and acknowledged the reality that, while the ACA has hurt many, it has helped many as well.   My biggest issue with the GOP bills, BTW, is that they won't do enough to discourage free riders.  Free riders are the cancer that will compel single payer unless a viable way to get them into the private insurance market can be devised.   

[Jazzhead]

define 'less virtuous'.

You tell me - who do you feel doesn't deserve affordable health coverage?   

[Emjay]

Everybody in America, rich or poor, white or black, can get essential medical treatment.

The issue for those that might lose subsidized insurance, is this: Is free medical insurance a right?

Exactly.  Before Obamacare, no one died in the streets.  Unless the hospitals around the country were different from those in Irving, Texas, anyone could walk into an emergency room and get care.

I personally witnessed this when my husband was in the emergency room.  While he was there, in the next bed behind a curtain, three black families came through with their kids.  It wasn't exactly emergencies.  The kids had headlice.  Each family was treated with great kindness and respect and medication given and prescribed.

And that's for head lice.  No one is dying in the streets ..

[truth_seeker]

As for folks dying in the streets - no one in Washington gives a damn.   

Are people dying in the streets, unable to get medical treatment? Not that I am aware of.

They were not, before Obamacare.

Obamacare has been a windfall for Insurance companies, and other health related "providers."

In the substance treatment end of things, corruption, fraud and immense amounts of money are being literally stolen from American taxpayers.

Do I believe the democrats intended to set up such opportunities? Of course they did.

Substance treatment firms, recruit addicts from the sidewalks, sign them up for Obamacare, fly them to California beach towns, for "treatment," give them cash to buy their smokes/vapes.

When they finish the programs, they dump them on the streets, or in some cases get them using again, in order to start over.

Billing $3500 per day for "professional" treatment, meaning some crooked MD puts their name on letterhead.

 

[roamer_1]

I haven't stated what "my way" is.   

Oh, but you have.

I've merely voiced general support for the GOP reform bills as vast improvements on ObamaCare - and acknowledged the reality that, while the ACA has hurt many, it has helped many as well.   

I would say, no, it hasn't.

My biggest issue with the GOP bills, BTW, is that they won't do enough to discourage free riders.  Free riders are the cancer that will compel single payer unless a viable way to get them into the private insurance market can be devised.

There you go again. There is no such thing as a 'free rider'. Your basic premise is liberal and socialist. Try thinking of things that don't involve insurance at all.

The cost of both insurance and healthcare are skyrocketing. WHY?

[roamer_1]

You tell me - who do you feel doesn't deserve affordable health coverage?   

No one 'deserves' anything.

[IsailedawayfromFR]

You tell me - who do you feel doesn't deserve affordable health coverage?   

you used it, you define it.

If you cannot, your comment  has no merit.

[txradioguy]

Are people dying in the streets, unable to get medical treatment? Not that I am aware of.

They were not, before Obamacare.

Obamacare has been a windfall for Insurance companies, and other health related "providers."

In the substance treatment end of things, corruption, fraud and immense amounts of money are being literally stolen from American taxpayers.

Do I believe the democrats intended to set up such opportunities? Of course they did.

Substance treatment firms, recruit addicts from the sidewalks, sign them up for Obamacare, fly them to California beach towns, for "treatment," give them cash to buy their smokes/vapes.

When they finish the programs, they dump them on the streets, or in some cases get them using again, in order to start over.

Billing $3500 per day for "professional" treatment, meaning some crooked MD puts their name on letterhead.

Well said @truth_seeker

[RetBobbyMI]

Simply repealing the 16th would not prevent an income tax.  At most it would prevent income tax on rents, capital gains, and dividends, but it would not prevent income tax on wages.

The Amendment reads: "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration."

So if that is repealed, how do you figure there is another means?