Also rather disappointing that the GOP didn’t have a plan already in hand that was more true to the principles they ran on, and that they didn’t seem quite as willing to go to bat to build support for it (perhaps because they were still debate what should be in the thing!).

Very zerang and interesting point!

It helps that these members of Congress come from “safe” districts.

But, what makes those districts “safe” to begin with?

Either the members were able to sell their ideology to the folks in their districts, and on their ability to represent that while in office, or the district was predisposed to someone of their ideology (i.e. they were convinced by prior members, or by action at the state and federal party levels). Probably a mix of both.

Bottom Line: It all circles back to the choices people make, as Congressional elections do a reasonable job of representing an “average” of what the folks in the district are looking for.
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Certainly hear much less about how other billionaires “screwed” people in the process of running their empires vs trump – much of which predates his run for the presidency.

trump also has some of the weakest arm’s length arrangements one could imagine. It MAY be enough to be legal, but it is very debatable whether it follows the spirit and ethics of what is needed.
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Zerangi (the sound, and the connotations) reminds me of “Ferengi” from Star Trek – which could arguably be a left biased representation of Capitalism gone wrong.

If Starbucks’ CEO says he plans to hire thousands of refugees, do you assume that he really wants more refugees accepted into the USA; or do you assume that he simply wants those hipsters that hang out in coffee shops all day, to now hang out in a Starbucks. CEO’s say things for two primary reasons, to boost sales, and to boost the stock price directly. And Trump was a CEO.

Maybe Trump really believes in universal healthcare. Maybe he grew up since he wrote that book. Maybe he was just being a CEO.

Do people remember that quaint notion that politician’s voting records should be scrutinized prior to re-electing them? I for one, would really like to see the total repeal of Obamacare passed through the House. Because I would like to see who in the Senate and Whitehouse takes a stand in support of it. Who would switch their vote in the Senate? Who were the phony supporters of repeal in the past?

I know, reality intrudes. McConnell would let the bill twist in the wind, and it would go down because of a filibuster or cloture vote. I say do it anyway.

If Trump wants to accomplish the revitalization of the American economy and needs bipartisan support for it, what better bargaining chip does he have than the carrot of single payer healthcare? That he opened to door to Democrat involvement immediately after ACHA bombed only confirms this belief.

Perhaps long held inclinations would be a better phrase? And who knows how long ‘long’ is. 2000 was a long time ago.
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That said, I think that most people (the normal kind who think about politics 10 minutes a week, not us) would see this either as a Republican eff up / gridlock as normal, or even Republican obstructionism rather than it all being Trump’s fault.

I’d say it was all of the above, personally.

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Lynn Burgess: “COBRA is your employer insurance plan and when on COBRA coverage, you continue to be on their billing statement and you remain a part of their group. The premium is paid to the former employer not to the insurance company and it is the same price they were paying for you when employed plus a small fee they can add to cover their administrative costs. So to make COBRA available indefinitely would make the former employer liable to service you indefinitely and that does not work.”

“The problem is not just continuity of coverage but when you start a new job even if you’ve had continuity of coverage if you have a pre-x condition the new insurance company will not cover that ailment for one year and thus the need for portable insurance that belongs to you and does not change when your employer changes. To be fully functional it would require everyone to buy into the same idea even employers who presently provide coverage who would instead deposit untaxed money to your HSA and you would buy your own insurance. I wrote about it more above if you’re interested in my further explanation.”

tobybrut: “It’s actually even more complicated than that. The premiums don’t actually go to the employer. They go to the employer’s plan administrator, which then distributes the premium to the insurance carrier, so there’s even more red tape than what you indicated. However, a concept similar to this can be proposed that looks the same from an employee’s point of view but may be vastly different behind the scenes.

Portability itself has problems. Even if you passed a mandate that said an individual could leave a company and be guaranteed the right to immediately buy a new policy regardless of pre-existing conditions, how fair is that to the second insurance company? It would make more sense if portability allowed you to buy the same policy from the same insurance carrier. But portability as everyone is talking about permits a newly-unemployed person to buy a policy from any carrier regardless of pre-existing conditions as long as that policy is bought relatively soon. Why does the second carrier have to support pre-existing conditions if that person had never had a policy with them before?

Portability is no longer just portability. It’s now a subsidy for pre-existing conditions, something that so many here abhor, yet those same people strongly support portability.

The only way to truly make it a non-pre-existing conditions mandate would be if employer-provided insurance was not permitted, but that kind of mandate should also be abhorrent to any conservative because it’s an interference in the free market.

One thing I came to like about AHCA was the provision inserted for the Patient and State Stability Fund (PSSF) that removed pre-existing conditions from the general individual insurance market. The problem with ObamaCare was that pre-existing conditions polluted the individual market, pushing up everyone’s premiums. The individual mandate was intended to make up for that by spreading out the risks among more people, but it failed because people simply paid the tax penalty rather than buy insurance they didn’t need or couldn’t use because it was too expensive.

The PSSF removed the risk from the individual market, so that the roughly 500,000 people with pre-existing conditions who did not have employer-provided insurance could be placed into a high-risk pool financed by the federal government. If a person loses his job and needs to buy insurance, that person could then be guaranteed the opportunity to buy a policy that’s subsidized by the PSSF. Nobody else’s premiums would be affected, completely eliminating ObamaCare’s biggest cost driver.

The second biggest cost driver was the EHB mandates, which were also eliminated by AHCA. With both of the biggest cost drivers of ObamaCare neutralized, premiums were certain to come down.”

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If what these folks are saying is true, and it sounds like they know what they’re talking about, the FC really needs to rethink their opposition to the AHCA.

If the AHCA dealt with two of the largest drivers of premiums– guaranteed issue and EHB, I’m not sure they are going to get a lot of additional concessions. Yes, they oppose the Medicaid expansion– but moving it more to the states through block grants is probably as conservative as you’re going to get.

The thrust of this article was re-visiting the Ted Cruz proposal to deal with ACA repeal.

http://www.redstate.com/patterico/2017/03/27/next-step-repealing-obamacare-ted-cruz-answer/

If Bannon told Roy to wipe his butt with his other hand, that it would support the fight against the moneyed interests of this toilet paper company…

The categorical truth that isn’t mentioned is that humans deceive and lie. It’s not just the “moneyed interests” that do so.

That’s what you get when you trust in humans, and it is also what Trum gets when he tries to move the might of DC, the capital of evil, using merely his own will.

Democrats enjoyed a majority of 257-178 in the house and a near filibuster proof majority in the senate of 59-41.

Republicans obviously don’t have that plurality. If they did now, the AHCA would likely have passed.