US Politics Mega-thread - Page 7073

WASHINGTON ― The Republican Study Committee, an influential group of House conservatives, called it “a Republican welfare entitlement.” Conservative advocacy group FreedomWorks, a major force on the right, put it simply: “This is ObamaCare-lite.” Over at Breitbart News, the lodestar of the Trump administration, readers variously dubbed it “Ryancare,” “Obamacare 2.0,” “Soroscare” or, for the wonks, “unEarned Income Tax Credit II.”

The brewing conservative opposition to House Speaker Paul Ryan’s reform of the Affordable Care Act centers on what Ryan calls “advanceable refundable tax credits” that could be used to subsidize the purchase of health insurance.

Conservatives are making the case ― quite accurately ― that such a payment is, in principle, no different than the subsidies already created by the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. For a campaign based on principle, that’s a devastating critique.

The only difference, in the end, is that Ryan’s subsidies are smaller than those in the current health care law. “Writing checks to individuals to purchase insurance is, in principle, Obamacare,” concludes an RSC staff report obtained by The Huffington Post and first reported by Bloomberg.

At its heart, Ryan’s health care plan cuts taxes for the wealthy by hundreds of billions of dollars. It does so by raiding Medicaid, a health care program that is popularly understood to benefit the poor but is also a lifeline to many elderly people. The bill also helps fund the tax cuts by raising the cost of health coverage for those over the age of 55 and those with pre-existing conditions.

But conservatives warn that the Medicaid cuts aren’t real. Ryan’s plan delays unwinding Medicaid expansion by several years, which would put the onus on a future Congress to suffer the pain.

The RSC doesn’t think that will happen.

“The future reduction is premised on a future Congress being willing to endure the political pressure of letting spending cuts go into effect,” the report warns. “It is unlikely that any future Congress will have a stronger political will in terms of reforming Obamacare entitlements than the sitting Congress – thus it is unlikely that the expansion repeal will ever be implemented in reality.”

President Donald Trump offered a less than full-throated endorsement for the plan on Tuesday morning, tweeting that the bill was now out for “review and negotiation.”

Asked how much of the bill Republicans were willing to negotiate over, House Energy and Commerce Chairman Greg Walden (R-Ore.) said it was a “legislative process,” and that Republicans were open to a “thoughtful legislative discussion.”

If the early responses are any indication, Republicans may have to make some changes.

Influential conservative groups spent the early part of Tuesday coming out against the bill. Heritage Action’s CEO, Michael Needham, called it “bad politics and, more importantly, bad policy.”

“In many ways, the House Republican proposal released last night not only accepts the flawed progressive premises of Obamacare but expands upon them,” Needham said.

Club for Growth President David McIntosh said that if this “warmed-over substitute for government-run health care” wasn’t changed, the Club for Growth would key vote against it.

On March 08 2017 06:25 Nyxisto wrote:
I am confused by this obsession with metaphysical choices. I saw a video on twitter of some GOP representative claiming that Americans love choices. What kind of choice is it to not have healthcare?

On March 08 2017 06:26 LegalLord wrote:
I guess the Wikileaks matter won't really be news until someone can parse through it all and get a handle for what it all means. Also they haven't released everything - they have to process many of the documents to redact sources. Still, there is a lot of code in there and a lot of very specific strategies used by American officials for espionage. Even in this Trump era it's likely to be big news.

However, I can't help but feel that this tit-for-tat leaking got out of hand somewhere along the way. Russian hacks are one thing; that's a foreign government doing something that is in their own best interest. But that seemed to have legitimized media leaks against Trump from intelligence. Which probably legitimized leaking in general, such as leaking this Vault 7 info to Wikileaks. Sure, it might not be actually an insider of the CIA, but I haven't been given any reason to doubt it to be so.

I can't help but feel that it was released to make way for a showdown between Trump and his critics in intelligence.

On March 08 2017 06:25 Nyxisto wrote:
I am confused by this obsession with metaphysical choices. I saw a video on twitter of some GOP representative claiming that Americans love choices. What kind of choice is it to not have healthcare?

On March 08 2017 06:28 Plansix wrote:
These are the people who have been arguing against section 8 forever, even those is houses so many elderly people. They subscribe to the outdated idea that proving a safety net will create dependence, like some form of addictive drug. And if you ever talk about how parts of the EU solved this problem, they try to paint it as some dystopian nightmare government oversight.

Kentucky is the promised land, where you a free to die in poverty and without health coverage.

On March 08 2017 06:35 Nevuk wrote:

Kentucky has the medicaid expansion, so poor people actually have fairly decent health coverage here.

On March 08 2017 06:35 Nevuk wrote:

Kentucky has the medicaid expansion, so poor people actually have fairly decent health coverage here.

On March 08 2017 06:21 Mohdoo wrote:
Its really freaking weird to be reminded that there are still republicans out there who subscribe to this idea that not everyone gets healthcare and that you have to deserve it by some weird metric. So ancient. The idea that American citizens should die from things our medicine can fix is just sad. We are so much better than that.

On March 08 2017 06:37 LegalLord wrote:

Here's the thing about leaks in general. They're like a highly effective weapon that also has huge collateral damage. Sure, it's absolutely a good thing for people to know some of this stuff. But on the other hand, all this info now leaks to everybody. Rogue hackers, foreign governments, cyber experts, everyone. The result is going to be massive, whether or not the news cycle eats it up. All those nations the US was hacking before? Well they're going to have to come up with an all-new hacking technique because years of work just went down the crapper. Relations with nations that are pissed off about this? Worsened. I could see some clever populists spinning this into an argument against free borders. Most relevant to us, though, is that it sets us up for a war between Trump and intelligence.

And this all seems to be an internal matter, so it's unlikely that there is a foreign devil to blame. Just an "anything goes" willy nilly acceptance of media leaks as a viable tool for political purposes.

On March 08 2017 06:53 Mysticesper wrote:
I hope its DOA.

But it's more like the republicans reliving the democrats in 2008 without the 60 vote supermajority.

And the dems are having the moderate vs extreme candidate / platform dilemma that the republicans had in 2008/12 with Romney and McCain.

It's like nothing changed at all, just a reversal of positions.