With John McCain breaking ranks early Friday morning with two other Republicans, repeal of parts of the Affordable Care Act failed. Does this mean the Republicans seven-year crusade is toast? Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says it’s time to move on.
Response from U.S. Senator Chris Murphy:
“People in Connecticut are breathing a huge sigh of relief right now. This bill, stripping health care from millions of Americans, was a nightmare, but if not for the uprising of millions of Americans all over the country, it would probably be law by now. I’m glad to have played a role in its defeat, but I am not celebrating. People in Connecticut tell me they’re tired of the two parties simply using their health care as a political cudgel. Now we have an amazing opportunity for Republicans and Democrats to actually work together to keep what’s working in the Affordable Care Act and improve what’s not working. I’m ready to sit down at the table to get a bipartisan, commonsense reform bill done.”/blockquote>
Prior to the vote, see video below, Murphy declared the whole process as “nuclear grade bonkers.”
Republicans attempted to do what the Democrats did when they passed the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) with their majority in Congress, their leadership admitting they had not read it and did not know what was in it.
Obamacare is, for the most part, an unsustainable expansion of Medicaid. Health exchanges have been a complete failure.
The failure of the Republican efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act leaves Obamacare in place. ‘The Resistance’ has been successful in obstructing an effort to wipe the slate clean and create a functional health care system that is not totally reliant on an unsustainable expansion of Medeicaid.
Members of ‘The Resistance’ such as Murphy and the entire Connecticut Delegation are, contrary to what Murphy claims, are celebrating because, as I suspect we will be hearing, they have preserved Obamacare.
I am sure the battle will continue, as Democrats call for more funding of Medicaid to preserve Obamacare and will condemn Republicans for refusing to increase that funding and keep Obamacare alive. Now it will get ugly.
I have always felt that John McCain and all the Americans held as POWs by North Viet Nam are American heroes. As a young man, McCain was a warrior with (by his admission) the necessary swagger. Facing his impending mortality, perhaps he feels he can influence his legacy with this break from his colleagues.
Well said Tom, if you don’t give a damn about your fellow man or woman. Bankruptcy IS the American way.
Who said that? Oh, that’s right Donald Trump.
Be proud of the fact that America is the wealthiest nation and does not have a policy of national heath insurance.
Having worked in a changing “healthcare insurance distribution” system for 50 years, I can attest to the different forces at work and the competition for harnessing dollar resources of our economy that are estimated to amount to 16-20% of our gross product today.
The competitive forces have been active in the past decade and one of the major battlegrounds is our US Congress. Because Democrats under Obama moved ACA into existence, the resistance to it has taken the title OBAMACARE as the enemy and vowed to remove it from the public place. However, to the extent that the Republican opposition seems to favor wealthy taxpayers and the vitality of existing insurance companies (who don’t have a lot of risk variance to deal with if you are covering large number of people year in and year out). There is a definite sense that destroying ACA is a vindictive and desperate action meant to strike at Obama on the part of more than a few Republicans. But no one did the homework over the eight years, and when it came due, some reason applied at least to three Republicans, two women, and John McCain, who instructed us to return to the normal ways of the past.(Interestingly, might that define Congressional activity before THE GREAT SWAMP entered our vocabulary?)
Lots of work to be done on many Washington fronts? In Hartford, we are already one month overdue with solid work towards a foundation for this year that does not shove the problem down the road? And locally, crickets? Time will tell.
“I Only Protested the Affordable Care Act Because the President Was Black. Please Don’t Take Away My Health Insurance” – by DAVID BRADLEY ISENBERG
https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/i-only-protested-the-affordable-care-act-because-the-president-was-black-please-dont-take-away-my-health-insurance
Bravo John McCain, you demonstrated that you love America more than trying to erase everything that President Barack Obama accomplished and petty political partisanship. Senator McCain you personally put America back on the road to greatness.
“Obamacare’ Was Originally Proposed By Republicans”
The fact that the individual mandate has deep Republican roots cannot be denied.The idea of an individual mandate replacing the single-payer health care system was proposed in 1989 by the conservative Heritage Foundation and was published in a paper titled, “A National Health System for America.”
https://ivn.us/2013/09/27/obamacare-was-originally-proposed-by-republicans/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PK5zqikbfUw
Wile I understand the concept of the Republican’s wanting to repeal the ACA from its inception when Obama took office and was signed into law in 2010 with over 50 repeal votes in the House prior to it having severe problems that the Democrats now acknowledge and want to work with Republicans to fix it. What I fail to understand about all of this is? What is going to happen if the Republican’s “repeal” ACA is not done and the fixes the Democrats acknowledge that the ACA needs, and the Republicans are saying it will implode on its own without taken any action to fix . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEyK-sJedIc
There is only one replacement. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PK5zqikbfUw