@r9etb So.... as a standalone bill, how would that part play out? Is there a way to do just that, in a manner that avoids the hysteria?
I wish there was, but no. That specific provision of the bill was something that 5 GOP Senators have said they don't like because they want to keep it a federal entitlement. So, you'd have to give them some other concessions to win their votes on that. That's kind of the problem with the whole thing -- you have to make it a package deal to get enough votes, but you also lose votes when you add things on to the package.
I don't think it is a matter of flawed strategy on the part of Ryan. I just don't think it is possible to get majority GOP support on a bill, period. The Freedom Caucus won't accept anything that isn't close to a full repeal, and the moderates won't accept anything that is. That's just where we arel.
IF the insurance companies don't have to deal with the 5%, does the general death spiral stop?
Yes.
Precisely. If the individual exchanges fail, it will be a "Hoover's fault" windfall for the Democrats. As un-conservative as it sounds, the Republicans' best chance seems to be based in fixing or replacing the worst parts of Obamacare. Failure to address the current problems -- the "let it fail" gambit -- will only help the Democrats.
I wish we didn't agree on that. I personally would take a deal that only got rid of 20% of ObamaCare, but kept 80%. Maybe there's a chance to knock of additional 20% chunks in the future. But the Freedom Caucus and a lot of folks just aren't willing to do that, and so we're going to end up getting rid of very little, if any, of it. In fact, if Trump couldn't cobble together a "fix" bill with a GOP majority, then he may just work with Democrats and some of the moderate GOP types who don't want to see it implode. In other words, rather than keeping 80% of Obamacare, we may end up with 120% or more of it.