Ryan, Pence, McCarthy and Price-- with Trumpy-the-Clown in tow-- failed to pass TrumpCare 3.0 or, put another way perhaps more salient for their base, failed to repeal Obamacare for the 3rd time in as many weeks, not just failed to repeal it-- their #1 campaign promise for how many years?-- but failed to even call a vote.
Since the Congressional Budget Office announced that they're nowhere near scoring TrumpCare 3.0-- and won't even have it for next week either-- Ryan could surprise everyone today and announce an instant vote. I think if the House Republicans have the votes to pass it-- regardless of how flat on its face it would fall in the Senate-- Ryan and McCarthy could actually succumb to Trump Regime pressure and call for the vote in a few hours.
A headline at Axios yesterday: GOP health care plan has momentum. This is the new plan where, aside from kicking 24 million people off health insurance, the Republicans gut protections for the sick (by eliminating protections for people with pre-existing conditions)-- and all to allow a tax cut for the super-rich.
This morning, a new Quinnipiac poll found that only 36% of American voters say Republicans in Congress should try again to repeal and replace Obamacare, the 2010 Affordable Care Act, while 60% say the Republicans should "move on." What's more, voters disapprove 65-29% of the way Trump is handling health care.
A couple of weeks ago an ad hoc group-- Save My Care- ran a powerful ad against vulnerable Nevada Republican Senator Dean Heller, who is up for reelection in 2018 and is the most likely GOP senator to lose his seat. Heller thanked his lucky stars that he didn't have to go on the record one way or the other in regard to Ryan's botched and failed TrumpCare bill which never made it onto the floor of the House, let alone to the Senate. The 30-second spot (above) ran and certainly had its impact.
Sunday, Texas conservative Ted Poe resigned from the Freedom Caucus because of TrumpCare. He was for it. The Caucus was, by and large, against it. Maybe Poe was afraid of Trump's wrath but that is odd in a Houston area district that wasn't especially pro-Trump. Romney won Poe's district with 63%, around the same that McCain won it with. Trump only managed 52.4%.
If we had a real president in the White House, instead of a grifter pretending to be a clown, he would have announced that his party has tried and failed to repeal the Affordable Care Act and that the next step is to have the Republicans and the Democrats sit down together and figure out-- for the good of the country-- a nonpartisan/non-ideological approach (based on Trump's own campaign promises) for fixing the problems in the ACA.
Let's go beyond the orgy of recriminations and finger-pointing over the massive and devastating Ryan-Trump-Pence-Price health care loss.
After the failure of President Trump to obtain a vote on repealing and replacing Obamacare, many are asking the question whether The Donald has what it takes to push his agenda through congress.
Although Trump has long maintained, in his public speeches and writings, that walking away from a bad deal is part of “The Art of the Deal,” the question remains if “Trumpcare” was really a deal he wanted to walk away from, or if he simply failed to corral dissenting members of the Republican Party.
