2017 American Political Scene

[antimony]

That's assuming little Melissa's parents are not Democrats with a Democratic Senator and they are about to get the stick like it or not.

In this scenario, not being Democrat with a Democratic Senator is a "pre-existing condition", which means they would be out of overage. Does this sound as a needlessly cruel and cynical joke about the health of a small child? Definitely yes, because that is the reality of our brave new world, with its "modern Presidential" values. American voters, regardless of their political affiliation, chose Trump and the GOP to lead the nation, and many of the states.

They need to face the consequences of that decision, good or bad.

Also, Melissa's parents can take it up with their Legislators. That is the patriotic American way. And they can start thinking very deeply about what they are going to do in 2018 and 2020.

[snapper]

G20: Who the Hell did you elect? 'The Donald' (aka Agent Orange) or his daughter? It is frankly an insult to other leaders present to allow her even close to having a say. G19...

[kato]

'The Donald' (aka Agent Orange) or his daughter?

Would there be much of a difference? I mean - maybe more Instagram, less Twitter... but other than that? It's not like he'd be saying or doing any more than she does. A few less political gaffes of the obscene kind too.

Except she's also perhaps a bit more politics-savvy than both her parents. Managed to not appear on a single picture with Merkel's husband during the meeting spoiling different plans. Unlike both her mother and her father.

[astralis]

^ it's not normal, and if, say, Obama did something equivalent (like letting Michelle sit in), you can bet Republicans would be foaming at the mouth about dereliction of duty and nepotism as well.

but that's not really a huge concern of mine in comparison to some of the other stuff. a "cybersecurity working group" with the Russians? are you freaking kidding me?

[zraver]

^ it's not normal, and if, say, Obama did something equivalent (like letting Michelle sit in), you can bet Republicans would be foaming at the mouth about dereliction of duty and nepotism as well.

Bobby Kennedy, Woodrow Wilson's wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, Hillary Clinton...

[kato]

it's not normal, and if, say, Obama did something equivalent (like letting Michelle sit in), you can bet Republicans would be foaming at the mouth about dereliction of duty and nepotism as well.

Merkel - as the host - considers it normal insofar as "a member of the US delegation sitting in while the leader of that delegation is out of the room" and acknowledges Ivanka as a regular "part and parcel" member of the US delegation. Someone else, say Tillerson, would have been just as acceptable - even if despite his title as secretary of state he's acting more like an impromptu press spokesman for the White House. Over here it's mostly seen as yet another quirk of the Trump administration and its lack of qualified personnel in certain positions, nothing more, nothing less.

[DOR]

Bobby Kennedy, Woodrow Wilson's wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, Hillary Clinton...

As long as we’re compiling meaningless lists, let’s not forget about
Harry and Robert E Lee
Will and Ben Harrisson
Ulysses S. Grant, Sr & Jr.
William Howard Taft (I through V)
Howard and Irene Baker
Maureen Reagan
Elizabeth Cheney
Sarah Huckabee Sanders
and of course, George W. Bush and Jeb?

Then, there’s the biggest American political family of all:
John Adams
John Quincy Adams
William Tecumseh Sherman
Susan B. Anthony
Archibald Cox

[Bigfella]

Let me see if I've got this straight:

Republicans have spent 7 years screaming the house down about the evils of Obamacare. They have voted against it how many times? (is 40ish correct?). They even passed a measure to get it repealed but that was nixed by Obama. Now they control Congress and the Presidency, and they can't pass a replacement plan. Even more bizarre, there is no guarantee they can even pass a repeal bill.

Seven years to negotiate among themselves on how to get this done. Gee, maybe if they had spent a bit more time on that and a bit less time opposing every single thing Obama did they might actually have an alternative. It says an awful lot about where the GOP finds itself as a national party, none of it very good.

[GVChamp]

Let me see if I've got this straight:

Republicans have spent 7 years screaming the house down about the evils of Obamacare. They have voted against it how many times? (is 40ish correct?). They even passed a measure to get it repealed but that was nixed by Obama. Now they control Congress and the Presidency, and they can't pass a replacement plan. Even more bizarre, there is no guarantee they can even pass a repeal bill.

Seven years to negotiate among themselves on how to get this done. Gee, maybe if they had spent a bit more time on that and a bit less time opposing every single thing Obama did they might actually have an alternative. It says an awful lot about where the GOP finds itself as a national party, none of it very good.

None of this is how politics works.
Reducing entitlement spending is politically difficult, especially given current political trends, especially when one party is going to take all the political heat for it, especially since the GOP is not actually a monolith and has a large number of moderate members that aren't on board with the Freedom House agenda.

It's still definitely stupid and a failure, but not super surprising.

Also, lockstep opposition to Obama was the correct move, given that we would now be stuck with even MORE stupid entitlements without it.

[astralis]

GVChamp,

has a large number of moderate members that aren't on board with the Freedom House agenda.

well, "large" being a relative term when the whole thing went down because of what, 3-4 "moderates" and 3-4 hard-righters.

It's still definitely stupid and a failure, but not super surprising.

it's stupid because essentially the GOP cannot admit to itself that the ACA -is- the conservative option when it comes to healthcare.

a smarter, more tactically oriented GOP would have just shrugged and negotiated during the crafting of the ACA to throw in some more conservative ideas. instead, being in lockstep means that the Dems would also be free to ignore them.

or, failing that, when the GOP got into power this year, get rid of a few taxes, declare a victory, and go on to what they REALLY care about-- tax reform, which is essentially giving away goodies vice taking them away.

the Politico article which states that the GOP leadership in both the WH and Congress seriously thought that they could get rid of the ACA by late February just shows the depths of their delusion.

[tbm3fan]

Let me see if I've got this straight:

Republicans have spent 7 years screaming the house down about the evils of Obamacare. They have voted against it how many times? (is 40ish correct?). They even passed a measure to get it repealed but that was nixed by Obama. Now they control Congress and the Presidency, and they can't pass a replacement plan. Even more bizarre, there is no guarantee they can even pass a repeal bill.

Seven years to negotiate among themselves on how to get this done. Gee, maybe if they had spent a bit more time on that and a bit less time opposing every single thing Obama did they might actually have an alternative. It says an awful lot about where the GOP finds itself as a national party, none of it very good.

You need to look at this with a more jaundiced and sinister eye. This is how it really was meant to go down. The Republicans railed against it for seven years and tried all they could to end the program. Probably because it would end up, over time, being a winner and one can't have that. They also knew Obama would save their asses by vetoing every move they tried yet allowing them to show they did try. Forgot to mention the fact that the longer it lived the more it would be liked.

Now, holy crap, that idiot Trump won and we have control of both houses. Trump promised early in the campaign that he was going to craft a beautiful new health care bill that would cover as many people, give one complete choice, and lower premiums. Never mind he doesn't know how to craft. Besides he threw that line out because it was a big applause getter and if there is one thing he loves, above all else, is the applause of the crowd for anything.

Now he has put the Senate Republicans into a bind because, double holy crap, we have to come up with something. Something better and something that will not be vetoed but signed this time. Well, isn't that a smack in the face as some now realize the real life cost might be a short term win for Trump, he gets to play I just signed something (did the cameras get my best side?), while some of them take it on the chin at home. Damn we outmaneuvered ourselves!

I need to be more sinister. After all this the blame for the failure will have to be placed on the Democrats and Obama. Never mind that the Republicans control everything but this is an alternate universe with different logic. We also know that the Democrats will come running to Trump to save the ACA now. Has he tweeted that yet?

[DOR]

None of this is how politics works.
Reducing entitlement spending is politically difficult, especially given current political trends, especially when one party is going to take all the political heat for it, especially since the GOP is not actually a monolith and has a large number of moderate members that aren't on board with the Freedom House agenda.

It's still definitely stupid and a failure, but not super surprising.

Also, lockstep opposition to Obama was the correct move, given that we would now be stuck with even MORE stupid entitlements without it.

This is how politics works:

GOPers are against everything that Democrats are for, regardless of whether it's good for the country or not.
GOPers got caught out more than once blowing out the budget for the purpose of wasting money on their base at the expense of the national interest.
When Democrats supported GOPer plans to bail out the financial sector, et al, GOPer assumed it was because GOPers were just awesome.
When Democrats tried to restart the economy, GOPers tried to shut down the government, again ... against the national interest.
When GOPers finally got all the power they could ever dream of, their blatant pro-rich / screw the poor ideology has become too obvious to hide.

[GVChamp]

GVChamp,



well, "large" being a relative term when the whole thing went down because of what, 3-4 "moderates" and 3-4 hard-righters.



it's stupid because essentially the GOP cannot admit to itself that the ACA -is- the conservative option when it comes to healthcare.

a smarter, more tactically oriented GOP would have just shrugged and negotiated during the crafting of the ACA to throw in some more conservative ideas. instead, being in lockstep means that the Dems would also be free to ignore them.

or, failing that, when the GOP got into power this year, get rid of a few taxes, declare a victory, and go on to what they REALLY care about-- tax reform, which is essentially giving away goodies vice taking them away.

the Politico article which states that the GOP leadership in both the WH and Congress seriously thought that they could get rid of the ACA by late February just shows the depths of their delusion.

I guess large is relative, but 3-4 is large enough when the margin is 2 votes. There's probably more like 10 more moderate Senators that don't want to voice a ton of opposition because they don't want to get primaried.


Tactical guesses are coulda-shoulda-woulda. There's not a "conservative" option to implementing a massive entitlement program. It's fundamentally social democratic wealth redistribution. There are more conservative or less conservative options within that.
There's basically no minor quibbles that could be added to the program that would've made the program a conservative one. The conservative objections to health-care are that it is not price-transparent, competition is extremely limited and subject to a mixture of state rules, and coverage is tied to your employer. Just to take the third, the solution would be to eliminate the tax preference for health insurance at the employer level while giving people a large tax break to buy healthcare. That's not what liberals would EVER agree to because they are not trying to "fix" the market, they are trying to redistribute wealth and ensuring maximum coverage. Which is why the ACA gives subsidies based on income level, which is the OPPOSITE of a conservative solution: I should get my employer's healthcare contribution against my taxes to buy my own healthcare.

That's an absolutely fundamental disagreement. It's not a minor change.
I should get my health-care savings account in addition to that, and I should get it utterly regardless of which coverage plan I pick, not have to pick a "catastrophic" plan to get.
I should also be allowed to buy across state lines, which, again, liberals aren't going to agree to, because then California will be under-bid by Texas. That Texas requires less under their health insurance is entirely the point: I don't want to buy the shitty California plans that will require me to pay massive more amounts of money and say "well, you get free mammograms." My moobs are very small.

A conservative solution absolutely would not be based on a massive expansion of Medicaid, and states should not get matching dollars for Medicaid. BLOCK GRANT. Again, no support, because then rich liberal states will get less money.

There absolutely wouldn't be guaranteed issue or mandatory community rating. Why should someone with diabetes pay the same amount as me? Why should they get almost $10,000 in free medicine? If you want to give them shit, then make it transparent, and create a separate-line item in the bill where you subsidize insulin purchases and procedures for people with diabetes. People who are denied coverage should get funded through high-risk pools, again, to make the price of paying them as transparent as possible. If Congress won't vote to support the high-risk pool, that's a FEATURE, not a BUG: it means Congress doesn't want to foot the bill.

These aren't small things, these are massive, fundamental disagreements. But that's besides the point. The ACA is not a market reform bill, it's an entitlement and wealth-redistribution bill, and that's inherently anti-conservative.

Like this, from the NY Times opinion section:

Chief among these obstacles are market limitations imposed by the problematic nature of health insurance, which requires that younger, healthier people subsidize older, sicker ones

No, this was never the obstacle. The obstacle is that a lot of people are too poor to buy health-care coverage. That's why the biggest expansion in health-care is in Medicaid. They are poor. They cannot afford health insurance. That's not a "market failure". That's literally how markets operate.

Young people buy health-care coverage even when it isn't required, through their employer. Because their employer contributes a large portion. Because they aren't taxed on it. People who buy individually don't get a market credit. THAT'S a market failure.
ACA does almost nothing to address this. Because if it did, there'd be massive revolt among the American population, the majority of which gets and is happy with their employer-provided health coverage.

Instead it raises taxes to give coverage to poor people.
That's redistribution.

[astralis]

GVChamp,

fundamentally social democratic wealth redistribution. There are more conservative or less conservative options within that.

yes, this is the root of it. let's put it this way, then-- the contours of the ACA is the conservative option if one believes there's a role for government in providing healthcare.

that's the fork that the GOP is sitting on. unfortunately for them, the principle of free market uber alles has pretty much oh, 15-20% support among the US populace (if that). there's no real way around this. they've been trying to gin up support by promising everyone that if only we reached this free market nirvana, everyone would have dirt cheap health insurance that covers everything, but then reality hits.

so as i said, this is essentially a losing proposition for the GOP. even their own base can't agree on what to do. stupid tactical maneuver.

[GVChamp]

I don't see what else the GOP could've done that would've been any better or won them anything they wanted. Their opposition to Obama and the ACA in particular fired up their base and delivered them the majority of state legislatures, along with the House, Senate, and the Presidency.

I don't see how not voting for Obamacare repeal now possibly puts them in a better electoral position in either 2018 or 2020. Alienating your base is not a winning strategy.

also, while the US is stuck with a healthcare entitlement at some point in the not so near future, it's not now. ACA passed because the Democrats got a huge 2008 majority and had a hugely popular President. It was a temporary super-majority, not a national mood. ACA exists now solely because of status quo bias and the difficulty of repealing entitlements. If someone tried passing it again, they would be laughed at.

They can't even get single-payer in Vermont right now.