Gem from TPM - "A Lot Came Unglued Last Night"
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/a-lot-came-unglued-last-night--2By JOSH MARSHALL Published MARCH 16, 2017, 11:21 AM EDT
There was a flurry of statements, recognitions and un-promises over the course of last night on the same front. Yesterday Vice President Pence tried to assuage Republican concerns that President Trump has had an at best diffident approach to his support of the House repeal bill. Coming out of that meeting, Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) told reporters, "This president is ready to put the full weight of his bully pulpit and all of his tools [behind the bill]. It was very important for us to hear that, because there are a lot of people who need that shoring up.”
This has been a very real and justified concern for the members who have to vote on this bill and face voters in less than two years. As we've discussed, President Trump's grasp of the details of health care policy is so thin, his ideology so protean and his narrow self-interest so total that any Republican on Capitol Hill has to be highly concerned he'll abandon them in the lurch. Something like that seemed to happen last night. When Tucker Carlson pressed Trump on how the bill would hurt his own core supporters, the President said in so many words that yeah, the bill may suck and if it does he won't sign it.
Good luck to anyone foolish enough to vote for a bill the President himself may turn against.
Then Speaker Paul Ryan, who has been saying that this is the bill and it ain't changing, suddenly said this bill actually can't pass the House.
Clearly the GOP leadership, in both chambers, is realizing that something with this bill will need to change. But the problem goes deeper than this. It's not simply that the plan appears to need major changes to pass. The issue is that it will require changes in what look like two, irreconcilable directions. Each side might be capable of some bargaining and compromise. But it's not to me how the compromises that might be possible with the House 'Freedom Caucus' members get anywhere near the ones demanded by Senators who have to face real electorates.
SNIP - more at the link
= new reply since forum marked as read
So I wrote mine. How I loved my plan and how premium costs are kept down. Then I thanked PBO, Reid and Pelosi for going the mile to help their fellow American, in the face of such diversity from the other side of the isle.
In closing, I said maybe republicans should contact Pelosi about improving ACA to single payer. She seems to know how to get positive results.
He could solve everything (and probably be re-elected in a landslide) by leapfrogging the Democrats (even Hillary said it was off the table) and pushing for universal health care with some form of single payer. Even if it were a private / public mix. This is one issue that he, at least in the past, has been open to looking at.
"Working out detailed plans will take time. But the goal should be clear: Our people are our greatest asset. We must take care of our own. We must have universal health care."
"We need, as a nation, to reexamine the single-payer plan, as many individual states are doing. But implementing such a plan is not simple. One major problem is that the single-payer plan in Canada is in financial difficulty, as is the nationalized plan in the United Kingdom. We have to improve on the prototype."
-- The America We Deserve, 2000
It may take someone like Trump to convince his blinder wearing maniacal hordes to accept some form of national mandated insurance. After all he could literally shoot someone and they'd still adore him. As we all know, the exact same type of legislation as the ACA was proposed by the Heritage Foundation decades ago, and was implemented by Mitt Romney in his State. It was just that the black Democrat proposed and enacted it that they had a problem with.
If he had the balls to stand up to Ryan and the extreme right and libertarians and push for this and drag his glassy eyed supporters along with him, he'd probably waltz through the next election. So no one tell him please.
Actually it raises a good poll question,
Would having some form of public funded single payer (even if there were a private option) universal health care coverage (finally) be worth having Trump in charge for eight years? Because it ain't gonna happen if Pence or any other Republican is in charge, and the tea baggers etc. would always reject any single payer from a Democrat as being 'socialist' gov'mint takeover, the message helped along by 24/7 propaganda against it from hate radio and Fox News.
