“Deja Vu, All Over Again”: Every Day Is Groundhog Day For The GOP’s Obamacare Replacement
In a moment of irony not lost on observers, the GOP-led House Rules Committee will spend Groundhog Day considering the 114th Congress’s first destined-to-be-vetoed attempt to repeal Obamacare. Adding to the déjà vu is the fact that, despite promises to replace the health care law, Republicans still don’t have a firm plan.
The latest repeal bill, sponsored by Rep. Bradley Byrne, an Alabama Republican, doesn’t propose a replacement, but mandates that relevant committees “report to the House of Representatives legislation proposing changes to existing law.” Those proposals, in the language of the bill, should meet 12 provisions, all of which either rehash generic Republican priorities (“foster economic growth and private sector job creation by eliminating job-killing policies and regulations”) or repeat old conservative health care proposals, like medical liability reform.
Further to Byrne’s bill, Reps. Paul Ryan, Fred Upton, and John Kline are expected to lead a task force to create an alternative. “House Republicans’ most serious attempt thus far to develop their health care reform package,” Politico reported Friday.
Early last year, Republicans devoted considerable time to hyping up possible replacements. There was the proposal from Senators Tom Coburn and Orrin Hatch last January; then a March measure from the House Republicans, which The Washington Post described as a “conservative approach to fixing the nation’s health-care system”; and, a few weeks later, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal’s Bobbycare.
And then in April 2014, Rep. Ryan released a budget for 2015 that repealed the law without endorsing any kind of replacement. When asked about his party’s plans, Ryan told The Washington Examiner that “we have lots of ideas of how to offer patient-centered health care… So you’ll see a lot of different comprehensive Republican alternative plans.”
Those alternatives never really solidified. The problem in 2014 was that Republicans couldn’t agree on one, or even on whether it was politically worthwhile to push an alternative that might distract from the Democrats’ Obamacare woes. The problem now is that the Supreme Court might completely gut the health care law in June by ruling that the three dozen states issuing Obamacare subsidies through federal exchanges are acting unlawfully.
Republicans have said that they want to be ready when the court decides—but they don’t seem to have a plan for that scenario. Then again, the Obama administration might not have a plan themselves.
By: Arit John, Bloomberg Politics, January 31, 2015
“It’s Not Him, Republicans, It’s You”: Mitt Romney Isn’t Running, But His Specter Still Haunts The GOP
I’ll have to admit that I’m a bit surprised Mitt Romney decided not to run for president, given the man’s almost superhuman optimism and persistence. But according to various reports, the torrent of criticism Romney received when he made it clear he was considering a run had a real impact on his final decision, even though in his statement he talked about his faith in “one of our next generation of Republican leaders” (take that, Jeb!) to win back the White House.
The Republican consensus was obviously that Romney represented failure, and they need something different if they are to win in 2016. But maybe Mitt Romney isn’t the problem. It’s not him, Republicans. It’s you.
Nobody would ever claim Romney was anything like a perfect candidate. His background as a private equity titan was particularly fertile ground for Democratic attacks painting him as the representative of the economic elite, and he had a colorful way of reinforcing that impression again and again, particularly with the “47 percent” remark.
But I actually think that if he had decided to run, he would have had a better chance than anyone of getting the Republican nomination. Every GOP primary campaign for the last half-century has begun with an obvious front-runner, and every one of those early front-runners got the nomination. Romney would have been that front-runner, as reluctant as many in the party were about his candidacy. In recent GOP races, the winner hasn’t been the one who defeated his opponents, just the one who outlasted them, as one chucklehead after another became the flavor of the month and then self-immolated (remember when Herman Cain led the primary polls in 2012?). Romney could certainly have stuck around until the end.
But now the 2016 race is truly a free-for-all, with no obvious leader. And if the only lesson Republicans take from 2012 is not to nominate a CEO (sorry, Carly Fiorina), they’ll make the same mistakes all over again.
Consider that “47 percent” remark. It made for a vivid illustration of arguments Democrats were already making, but Mitt Romney was hardly the first Republican to say it. The basic idea underlying it had been repeated endlessly on conservative talk radio and by other Republican politicians for years. If it hadn’t been caught on tape, the attacks from Democrats would have been the same, and the outcome would have been the same. Another example: when Republicans exploded with joy after Barack Obama’s “you didn’t build that” remark, Romney didn’t have to convince them to make it a huge issue; they all thought it would be a silver bullet that would take the president down, and they were all flummoxed when it didn’t. They couldn’t imagine that voters wouldn’t punish Obama for an (alleged) criticism of business owners, because they forgot that most Americans work for somebody else.
The prevailing attitude in GOP circles is that Romney failed because he was the wrong messenger. Yet almost every contender is preparing to offer voters the same policy agenda that Romney did. They may be saying now that they’ll talk about wage stagnation and inequality, but when you ask them what they’re going to do about it, their answer is the same as it has always been: cut taxes and cut regulation. It’s going to be awfully hard to convince voters that they’ve had a real change of heart. And anyone who deviates from Republican orthodoxy is already finding themselves on the defensive (as Jeb Bush is for his less-than-total enthusiasm for deportations).
It isn’t surprising that the party’s diagnosis of what went wrong in the last couple of elections won’t extend to the policies they’re offering the public; those positions are rooted in sincere ideological beliefs, and changing them would be hard. But even without Mitt Romney in the race, it looks like Republicans are going to offer a program of Romneyism. They could find themselves facing voters at a time when the economy is doing well overall, and they’re particularly ill-suited to address the structural problems that keep people anxious — two strikes against them. A fresh face is unlikely to solve that problem.
By: Paul Waldman, Senior Writer, The American Prospect; The Plum Line, The Washington Post, January 30, 2015
“We Have One President At A Time”: Boehner’s Invitation To Netanyahu Backfires On Them Both
The political ramifications are clear: House Speaker John Boehner and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a colossal mistake by conspiring behind President Obama’s back, and the move has ricocheted on both of them.
The big, scary issue underlying the contretemps — how to deal with Iran’s nuclear program — is a more complicated story. I believe strongly that Obama’s approach, which requires the patience to give negotiations a chance, is the right one. To the extent that a case can be made for a more bellicose approach, Boehner and Netanyahu have undermined it.
First, the politics. Why on earth would anyone think it was a good idea to arrange for Netanyahu to speak to a joint session of Congress without telling Obama or anyone in his administration about the invitation?
Yes, Congress has an important role to play in international affairs. And yes, the days are long gone when disputes among officials over foreign policy ended at the water’s edge; members of Congress routinely gallivant around the globe and share their freelance views of what the United States should or should not be doing. But inviting a foreign leader to speak at the Capitol without even informing the president, let alone consulting him, is a bald-faced usurpation for which there is no recent precedent.
Pending legislation, which Obama threatens to veto, would automatically impose tough sanctions against Iran if the drawn-out, multiparty nuclear negotiations fail. If Boehner wanted to build support for sanctions, he failed spectacularly.
Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee and a vocal hawk on Iran policy, announced Tuesday that he would not vote for his own bill imposing automatic sanctions — at least not until after a March 24 deadline for negotiators to produce the outlines of an agreement. Nine of his pro-sanctions Democratic colleagues in the Senate joined him, meaning the bill is unlikely to win the necessary 60 votes for passage.
If Boehner’s aim was to paint Obama as somehow soft on Iran, he failed at that, too. The speaker inadvertently turned the focus on himself and has had to spend the week explaining why he went behind the president’s back, not even giving the White House a heads-up until hours before the March 3 speech was announced.
Netanyahu, for his part, may have thought this was a way to boost his prospects in the upcoming Israeli election, scheduled for March 17. Or he may have fantasized that somehow, by openly siding with the Republican Party, he could snatch U.S. foreign policy out of Obama’s hands. Judging by the pounding he is taking from the Israeli media, he was mistaken on both counts.
Note to all foreign leaders: We have one president at a time. Americans respected this fact when George W. Bush was president, for better or worse. And we respect it now.
The speech episode borders on farce, but the larger debate over Iran’s nuclear ambitions could not be more serious. The central issue is whether a negotiated deal will leave Iran with the theoretical capability to build a nuclear bomb if it were to decide to do so. No amount of diplomatic legerdemain, it seems to me, can avoid answering this question with a simple yes or no.
If you say yes, as Netanyahu does, then Iran must be stripped of all ability to enrich uranium. It is easy to understand why the Israeli government sees a nuclear-capable Iran as an existential threat — and also worries that other regional powers concerned about Iran’s growing influence, such as Saudi Arabia, might decide that they, too, need to get into the nuclear game.
Iran insists, however, that it has the right to a peaceful nuclear program. The government in Tehran is unlikely to give up that right but may be willing to limit itself to low-grade enrichment that produces material incapable of being used in a bomb. At least some infrastructure for high-grade enrichment would remain, however — and so would some risk of an eventual Iranian bomb.
Is this good enough? If the alternative is war with Iran, it may have to be.
I do not believe that war is in the interest of the United States. I also do not believe that war is in the interest of Israel, but of course Netanyahu has the right — he would say the duty, if he concludes that force is required — to disagree. Nothing that remotely resembles a perfect outcome is in sight. It must be better to keep talking than start bombing.
By: Eugene Robinson, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, January 29, 2015
“What Happens If The Dog Catches The Car?”: GOP Faces Health Care Challenge It’s Totally Unprepared For
We don’t yet know what the Supreme Court will do in the King v. Burwell case, but we have a fairly good sense what will happen if the Supreme Court sides with Republicans. In effect, there will be chaos that could do considerable harm to insurers, families, state budgets, the federal budget, hospitals, and low-income children.
It sounds melodramatic, but the fact remains that if the GOP prevails, more Americans will literally go bankrupt and/or die as a result of this ruling.
With this in mind, I couldn’t help but find some sardonic humor in the House Republicans’ request for information from the Obama administration yesterday.
Senior House Republicans are demanding that the Obama administration reveal its contingency plans in the event that the Supreme Court scraps Obamacare subsidies in three dozen states. […]
“Specifically, we are examining the extent to which the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and other relevant agencies of the federal government, are preparing for the possible consequences of the Supreme Court’s decision in the case of King v. Burwell,” wrote the lawmakers.
The fact that the GOP lawmakers didn’t appreciate the irony was itself unfortunate, but the simple truth is that the underlying question – what happens if the Supreme Court takes this stupid case seriously and guts the American health care system? – is one Republicans should be answering, not asking.
If we had a normal, functioning political system, represented by two mainstream governing parties, the solution would be incredibly simple. If the Supreme Court said the language in the Affordable Care Act needed clarification, lawmakers would simply approve more specific language before Americans felt adverse consequences. The legislative fix would be quite brief and the whole process could be wrapped up in an afternoon.
No one, in this scenario, would actually suffer.
But in 2015, Americans don’t have the benefits of a normal, functioning political system, represented by two mainstream governing parties. On the contrary, we have a dysfunctional Congress led by a radicalized, post-policy party that has no use for governing, and which welcomes adverse consequences no matter how many Americans suffer.
And the question for them is what they intend to do if, like the dog that catches the car, Republican justices on the Supreme Court rule their way in the King v. Burwell case. Sahil Kapur had a terrific report on this overnight.
Many Republicans would view it as a dream come true if the Supreme Court were to slash a centerpiece of Obamacare by the end of June. But that dream could fade into a nightmare as the spotlight turns to the Republican Congress to fix the mayhem that could ensue.
“It’s an opportunity that we’ve failed at for two decades. We’ve not been particularly close to being on the same page on this subject for two decades,” said a congressional Republican health policy aide who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “So this idea – we’re ready to go? Actually no, we’re not.”
Republican leaders recognize the dilemma. In King v. Burwell, they roundly claim the court ought to invalidate insurance subsidies in some three-dozen states, and that Congress must be ready with a response once they do. But conversations with more than a dozen GOP lawmakers and aides indicate that the party is nowhere close to a solution. Outside health policy experts consulted by the Republicans are also at odds on how the party should respond.
Republicans could approve a simple legislative fix, but they don’t want to. Republicans could introduce their ACA alternative, but they don’t want to do that, either. They could encourage states to create their own exchange marketplaces, largely negating the crisis, but they don’t want to do that, either.
So what do GOP lawmakers want? They haven’t the foggiest idea.
Kapur talked to a GOP aide who works on health care policy on Capitol Hill who said, “Our guys feel like: King wins, game over, we win. No. In fact: King wins, they [the Obama administration and Democrats] hold a lot of high cards. And we hold what?”
Millions of families who would be screwed by Republican victory in this case will be eager to hear an answer to that question.
By: Steve Benen, The Madow Blog, January 29, 2015
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