Senate: 54 R, 46 D

Let's assume a totally partisan vote.
- Paul, Lee, Cruz = 51 for, 49 against. At best 52 for if Manchin flips.



House: 246 R, 187 D

Let's assume a totally partisan vote.
-28 for House Liberty Caucus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Caucus) = 218 for, 215 against

I count several people in the Freedom Caucus not in the Liberty Caucus (Brooks, Babin, Buck, Palmer, Franks, Davidson, Harris, Hice, there's more). That's another -8 right there and the bill is defeated.

The GOP is going to need to carry ALL the RINOs and flip a decent chunk of the Freedom Caucus. I'm sure it's full court blitz see who can be bought and how much it costs to buy them.

(03-07-2017 11:51 PM)Bull_Is_Back Wrote:  

(03-07-2017 11:43 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  The Liberty Caucus appears to be in total opposition to the bill.

And the Freedom Caucus appears to be in near total opposition to the bill.

The margins for the GOP to pass this are on life support on the Senate (dependent upon Manchin) and maybe on life support in the House too.

They need 60, so I'd say in it's current form it's not on life support, it's in hospice.

I think Turtle McGee would use the nuclear option (or reconciliation) to pass it if his overlords paid him off enough.

(03-08-2017 12:00 AM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  Senate: 54 R, 46 D

That was last year's breakdown. Current Senate is 52 R/48 D (counting the "independent" Sanders and King as D).

House is 237/193 with 5 vacant seats.

(03-08-2017 12:08 AM)58-56 Wrote:  

(03-08-2017 12:00 AM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  Senate: 54 R, 46 D

That was last year's breakdown. Current Senate is 52 R/48 D (counting the "independent" Sanders and King as D).

So they HAVE TO HAVE Manchin flip now to get past the Senate. And they're not going to be able to buy Lee or Paul or Cruz it seems. That's no margin for error in the Senate.

It has a path to make it to Trump's desk. But man oh man it's a narrow and treacherous one.

(03-07-2017 05:57 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  

(03-07-2017 03:47 PM)Hood-rich Wrote:  8 ******* years they've had to put together a free market alternative.

Maybe that means the "free market" is a load of horse manure, to begin with?

we've havent had a true free market healthcare system in a long time.

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(03-07-2017 09:18 PM)Love and Honor Wrote:  Congressman Justin Amash:

Quote:The new Republican plan does not repeal/replace Obamacare; it repackages Obamacare. It's a political plan that signals retreat and will not reduce health care costs.

Obamacare is essentially a financing system to ensure that the insurance companies get paid to provide coverage to individuals who were previously deemed ineligible. The GOP proposal amends Obamacare and maintains its overall structure and general approach. It does not effectively address health care costs.
The states, independently or through multistate compacts, can more adequately tackle the particular health care needs of their residents. At a minimum, however, the starting point for congressional debate should be the Rand Paul/Mark Sanford legislation.

Ultimately, a sound and accessible health care system requires us to address the legal and institutional impediments that limit choice and competition, drive up the price of pharmaceuticals, and obscure costs through the third-party payer system. Because it will be substantially more affordable, such a system can provide a robust backstop for catastrophic situations and for the poor and vulnerable.

A few days ago, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, and Mike Lee tweeted out identical messages saying that they're voting no on anything less than a full repeal and replace. If that's the case, this thing is DOA before you consider other Republicans who may break with the party. There's not much of a chance you get any Democrat on board besides Joe Manchin, unless you use the political tactics I've described on this board in the past.

thank God for those 3.

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Full repeal and replace would require 60 votes correct? That proposition is DOA due to partisanship even if the bill said a 24/7 personal doctor would be provided to every American with all costs being paid by Trump personally.

Operating from that premise I would rather the powers that be do something to scale back the monstrosity that is Obama care without destroying the filibuster in the Senate.

Unfortunately I don't see a better way

(03-07-2017 05:59 PM)dfarr Wrote:  Free Market means letting people decide what they want to buy, not dictating what every policy has to include in it.

If I want a policy that just covers ER visits and colonoscopies, then an insurance company should be able to sell me a policy like that.

All I want are emergencies, chronic illness, and surgery. I don't need primary care, don't need maternity, don't need mental health, don't need abortion. As a healthy 37 yo male, this shouldn't cost more than $50 per month.

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Me me me me me.


How about what is good for society?

I can't wait for the CBO to score the monstrosity. It's a tax cut. Obamacare without a way to pay for it.

(03-07-2017 06:33 PM)Machiavelli Wrote:  Why do you hate women Bull?

Following Bull's logic, women ought to be able to choose their coverage as well. How are you against that? The prototypical ugly marching woman that doesn't want kids will get it cheaper than the beautiful housewife that wants to spend the next 10 years barefoot and pregnant. So even your people make out under Bull's plan.

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I've informed my representatives that I will not support them if they vote for this steaming pile of schit. I suggest everyone do the same.

(03-08-2017 12:11 AM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  

(03-08-2017 12:08 AM)58-56 Wrote:  

(03-08-2017 12:00 AM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  Senate: 54 R, 46 D

That was last year's breakdown. Current Senate is 52 R/48 D (counting the "independent" Sanders and King as D).

So they HAVE TO HAVE Manchin flip now to get past the Senate. And they're not going to be able to buy Lee or Paul or Cruz it seems. That's no margin for error in the Senate.

It has a path to make it to Trump's desk. But man oh man it's a narrow and treacherous one.

Cruz, Paul, and Lee can't be the only 3. Tim Scott? Rubio? The woman from Maine? Tom Cotton?

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(03-08-2017 06:30 AM)Machiavelli Wrote:  Me me me me me.


How about was is good for society?

I can't wait for the CBO to score the monstrosity. It's a tax cut. Obamacare without a way to pay for it.

Why aren't my needs good for society? I want to be insured against financial ruin. I can pay for my annual bloodwork, PCP visits, and drugs out of pocket. If I get in an accident, have a heart attack, or get cancer... that is why I am buying insurance. What does that have to do with anyone else. Society wouldn't be paying for any of that.

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(03-08-2017 12:11 AM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  

(03-08-2017 12:08 AM)58-56 Wrote:  

(03-08-2017 12:00 AM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  Senate: 54 R, 46 D

That was last year's breakdown. Current Senate is 52 R/48 D (counting the "independent" Sanders and King as D).

So they HAVE TO HAVE Manchin flip now to get past the Senate. And they're not going to be able to buy Lee or Paul or Cruz it seems. That's no margin for error in the Senate.

It has a path to make it to Trump's desk. But man oh man it's a narrow and treacherous one.

Cruz skipped the Paul-Lee presser yesterday so he might be flippable.

There's no purity involved, only the price tag. Cruz talked a tough "vote your conscience" game in July and was manning a phone bank by October.

While I have great faith in the idiocy of Team Trump, I'd never count out the Congressional R leadership on delivering party discipline. If this fails the odds are high they want it to fail ("see, we did all we could!").

Replacing a monstrosity with another monstrosity does nobody any good--least of all Americans, particularly republicans.

Obamacare is half-ased single payer. This is kind of half-assed Bismarck. Half-assed won't work.

Why won't either side go all the way? Because, quite simply, health care costs so much that there is no way for government to solve the access problems without increasing taxes. You can try to pass the costs off onto third party A or third party B, and you can change the rules so that C gets health care instead of D. But you can't actually achieve any improvement that way, you're just changing the identity of who gets screwed. The very best you can do is a zero-sum game, and long term Obamacare doesn't even do that.

I still see Bismarck health care, supported by a consumption tax, as the way to go.

Bismarck health care, 15% consumption tax, 15% social security payroll tax with no ceiling, Boortz-Linder prebate/prefund set at 30% to offset consumption and payroll taxes, and 15% flat tax on all business and investment income, with no personal income tax, would balance the budget, provide a far more comprehensive welfare safety net than what we have now, eliminate the welfare trap that locks people into poverty, and make us more than tax competitive with the rest of the world for attracting future investment and jobs.

First impact, almost immediately, $3 trillion comes rolling home from overseas, gets invested in the domestic economy, and spurs a skyrocketing growth rate. We would probably want to hold that growth rate to something like 5%/year for our own long-term good, and I would anticipate great difficulty in so doing.

(03-08-2017 07:31 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Replacing a monstrosity with another monstrosity does nobody any good--least of all Americans, particularly republicans.

Obamacare is half-ased single payer. This is kind of half-assed Bismarck. Half-assed won't work.

Why won't either side go all the way? Because, quite simply, health care costs so much that there is no way for government to solve the access problems without increasing taxes. You can try to pass the costs off onto third party A or third party B, and you can change the rules so that C gets health care instead of D. But you can't actually achieve any improvement that way, you're just changing the identity of who gets screwed. The very best you can do is a zero-sum game, and long term Obamacare doesn't even do that.

I still see Bismarck health care, supported by a consumption tax, as the way to go.

Bismarck health care, 15% consumption tax, 15% social security payroll tax with no ceiling, Boortz-Linder prebate/prefund set at 30% to offset consumption and payroll taxes, and 15% flat tax on all business and investment income, with no personal income tax, would balance the budget, provide a far more comprehensive welfare safety net than what we have now, eliminate the welfare trap that locks people into poverty, and make us more than tax competitive with the rest of the world for attracting future investment and jobs.

First impact, almost immediately, $3 trillion comes rolling home from overseas, gets invested in the domestic economy, and spurs a skyrocketing growth rate. We would probably want to hold that growth rate to something like 5%/year for our own long-term good, and I would anticipate great difficulty in so doing.

I could absolutely get behind your plan.

(03-08-2017 07:31 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Replacing a monstrosity with another monstrosity does nobody any good--least of all Americans, particularly republicans.

Obamacare is half-ased single payer. This is kind of half-assed Bismarck. Half-assed won't work.

Why won't either side go all the way? Because, quite simply, health care costs so much that there is no way for government to solve the access problems without increasing taxes. You can try to pass the costs off onto third party A or third party B, and you can change the rules so that C gets health care instead of D. But you can't actually achieve any improvement that way, you're just changing the identity of who gets screwed. The very best you can do is a zero-sum game, and long term Obamacare doesn't even do that.

I still see Bismarck health care, supported by a consumption tax, as the way to go.

Bismarck health care, 15% consumption tax, 15% social security payroll tax with no ceiling, Boortz-Linder prebate/prefund set at 30% to offset consumption and payroll taxes, and 15% flat tax on all business and investment income, with no personal income tax, would balance the budget, provide a far more comprehensive welfare safety net than what we have now, eliminate the welfare trap that locks people into poverty, and make us more than tax competitive with the rest of the world for attracting future investment and jobs.

First impact, almost immediately, $3 trillion comes rolling home from overseas, gets invested in the domestic economy, and spurs a skyrocketing growth rate. We would probably want to hold that growth rate to something like 5%/year for our own long-term good, and I would anticipate great difficulty in so doing.

So why can't out representatives present such a plan?

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I've said this for years. He's the only guy I have ever heard that talks like this though. Out politicians don't.

(03-08-2017 07:58 AM)Hood-rich Wrote:  So why can't out representatives present such a plan?

That's a fair question. And I'd answer that first, it's because we as a people are way stupider than we pretend. That program outlined above, simple as it is, still won't fit in a meme. We want simple messages (kill the gays! hurray for gays!) and we want to treat politics like football, not something that actually reflects real-life choices (like, how often do you read actual left-right discussions between sane adults here or anywhere?).

Second, this is a very rich country. So much so that we're complacent and indulge in political luxuries (more people will die of bubonic plague this year than refugee-induced terrorism, no one's ever going to know where trans people poop, no one's suddenly becoming feminist because no chicks showed up for work today and on and on in a vomit-inducing parade of moronity). So we're convinced we can just muddle by and there's no real need to fix problems. If we fixed them how would we raise money for the next election?

Third, a democracy is inherently corrupt. This is the price we pay for freedom of speech and expression: that we can try to put limits on the power of the powerful (and we should), but we will never eliminate that corruption. Barack Obama didn't include private insurance companies in his scheme because he loves them, he did it because he did not believe he could defeat their power of bribery (excuse me, campaign contributions, you know, like the ones Jason Chaffetz uses to pay his cell-phone bill). And so we got half-assed single payer, because he thought the industry was tough enough to fight off the full ass. He may have been right on that, but they ended up rolling him anyway, which I could have told him would happen.

Fourth, Congress is a really great gig. You get your cell phone AND your health insurance paid for by someone else, plus you get a pension. And a gym and a really great dining hall (I've eaten there and it truly is spectacular). Who's going to give that up and challenge a powerful corrupt power center (without a more powerful one at your back)?

(03-07-2017 05:54 PM)Bull_Is_Back Wrote:  

(03-07-2017 05:02 PM)Redwingtom Wrote:  With all due respect, I don't think you're aware of what the ACA actually is.

Somewhere around 85% of the insured get their coverage through employers. That's free market. All those plans are covered by the ACA.

With all due respect I don't think you're aware of what the free market sells.

When the government starts telling you *exactly* what you can sell, it's no longer a free market. When the government tells you *you have to buy* it's no longer a free market.

No, I totally understand that. My premise was that if you're getting any sort of health care bill out of Washington (which will of course have industry regulations) that the ACA is about the best you're going to get. I see the ACA as a giant carrot to the insurance industry.