Republicans suddenly realize burning down the health-care system might not be a great idea

[DonViejo]

By Paul Waldman February 22 at 1:00 PM

The Republican effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act is not going well, in large part because it turns out that making sweeping changes to a system that encompasses one-sixth of the American economy turns out to be rather more complicated than they imagined. Their backtracking has an interesting character to it, in particular how they’ve been gobsmacked by the transition from shaking their fists at the system to being responsible for it.

Up until November, they had been pursuing a strategy they got straight from Marx and Lenin, but now that they’re in power, it suddenly looks like a terrible idea. Here’s the latest fascinating pirouette they’re undertaking:

House Republicans and the Trump administration on Tuesday filed a joint motion seeking to delay lawsuit proceedings that threaten to undo President Barack Obama’s health care law, the Affordable Care Act.

The House v. Price suit – formerly known as House v. Burwell, as it was filed when Sylvia Mathews Burwell was health and human services secretary – has presented Republicans with one of their most straightforward routes toward fulfilling their stated desire to do away with or dismantle Obamacare.

Yet in the absence of an Obamacare replacement plan, the outcome the GOP initially sought threatens to upend the insurance marketplace and jeopardize coverage for millions of people.

Just to be clear, Republicans are asking the court to delay their own lawsuit pretty much indefinitely, because they’ve become terrified of what would happen if they succeed. In this case, it concerns government subsidies to pay out-of-pocket costs for people with low incomes. The fact that this case is now called House v. Price (as in Tom Price, President Trump’s secretary of health and human services) shows the contradiction. Now neither the GOP House nor the Trump administration wants the lawsuit to succeed, though they won’t say this aloud — because that would mean billions of dollars in payments to insurers would cease, and as a consequence the insurers would either hike premiums or pull out of the individual market.

-snip-

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2017/02/22/republicans-suddenly-realize-burning-down-health-system-might-not-be-a-great-idea/?utm_term=.7b586f4a1bac&wpisrc=nl_popns&wpmm=1

[marybourg]

1. Piss or get off the pot.

The court should advance the suit or dismiss with prejudice.

[JudyM]

2. It is stunning that they had no plan except to sling mud. Are they truly idiots?

[irisblue]

3. just 75% are idiots, 20% are chickenshits, 4% mendacious

1% to be determined by history.

[JudyM]

4. Ha! Sounds about right.

[raccoon]

5. Apparently so. nt