GOP will NOT vote on Graham-Cassidy Bill

Republicans being incompetent and being exposed as the amoral sacks of crap that they truly are? Who would've thunk?

I won't rest easy until September 30th is over.

Will they vote on anything at all this week?

@Serraph105:

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/25/obamacare-repeal-republicans-budget-243125

"Here’s how it could be done: While the Senate parliamentarian has ruled that the repeal push under fiscal 2017 must die after Sept. 30, Republicans could provide reconciliation instructions for both health care and tax reform in the fiscal 2018 budget resolution that Congress must pass to again unlock the fast-track procedural powers."

Ho ho ho

But of course they won't, "The newly found democrat" Mccain is voting together with a few other bell-ends and voing no with the democrats.

And what a shame Mccain is not up for re-election, would be fun to see him against Trump.

What are you nervous about?

Mccain won´t vote yes on anything as long as Trump is president.

So if you are worried about a repeal of Obamacare, you need to wait until Mccain is gone or Trump is.

McCain has said that he wants regular procedure, and yes that won't happen in the next 4 days. He has said nothing about Trump being the reason he won't vote for it.

So basically republicans will get another shot next year. That makes sense considering Obamacare was passed in 2010. Hopefully the politics of taking away people's healthcare in an election year will weigh too heavily on their minds to actually go through with it. On the other hand democrats are very unlikely to pick up many seats in the senate in 2018 due to who is up for election so maybe republicans will consider the election year as less of a deterrent than normal.

Oh for fucks sake.......he's not a democrat. Not even close. Maybe it's a shitty bill...........hint....it is.

i'm sure there's a few in the GOP who just can't wait for him to die off at this point...

McCain's brain cancer is incredibly aggressive. So far he's chugging along, but that could change at any time.

womp womp

Wow, how disrespectful you are towards a man who has brain cancer. What is wrong with you?

McCain is using every excuse in the book, but you can be sure a major reason for his behaviour is Trump. Even the dumbo´s at CNN have seen that.

But with that said of course his illness also have an impact on his decisions, he is trying to secure his "legacy"

It´s a joke, I know Mccain is still a republican but his behaviour has him a lot closer to the democrats than republicans, even his former friends seem to be his enemies now.

And no Mccain is just holding a major grudge against Trump after his shit talking during the campaign.

Obamacare isn't healthcare. It is a mandate that forces people to pay profit driven middlemen who have no interest in improving things. In fact, they have a legal and ethical obligation to the increase profits of the insurance industry, not the quality of the healthcare industry. That is sort of why our healthcare is the most expensive in the world, even though it is a laughingstock in the eyes of other developed nations. At the end of the day expanded coverage doesn't do much to help poor people who experience a health crisis. Link. They still go broke, now they just have to pay into a system that kicks them to the curb the moment they actually need some healthcare. On top of that they have keep paying into that system, even after they go broke and it kicks them to the curb. If they refuse to continue paying the middlemen who betrayed them, then the government just takes the money instead.

You know, because someone has to pay for Obamacare.

Repeal and replace should have been the battle cry of the liberal party in 2016, not the conservative. When the youth of America turned out for Obama it was because he said things like "Now is the time for Universal Healthcare." They wouldn't have shown up if the cheer was phrased "Now is the time to safeguard the middlemen who made our healthcare system the most expensive in the world!" If folks expect young people to show up for them in 2020, the democratic party needs to leave this kind of corporatism behind. We have trump for four years because they stayed home in 2016. 'Liberal' corporatism is the best way to make sure the same thing happens in 2020.

Wtf? are you on about

So because he is ill i can't disagree with his voting? or his politics

What is wrong with you?

I'm fine with the idea that we should be for Universal Healthcare or a Single Payer system. That said the ACA did place tougher standards on the health insurance industry making it harder to kick patients to the curb as you say. It's better than what we had before despite not being everything many people wanted.

This is an untrue statement as long as the expected result of a health crisis is bankruptcy. At least for anyone making less then about $50k a year. Given that most of the most common jobs pay less then that, and in many cases substantially less, I do not see how forcing folks to pay middlemen helps anyone but the middlemen. Heck, they would be better off if you just forced them to dump the money into a savings account that didn't accrue interest. At least then they might be able to pay rent while they are declaring bankruptcy.

Corporatism is not the answer. It isn't liberal either. It is about as establishment as you can get.

Paying into an account would not be enough money to pay for medical care particularly if you have a major issue. Insurance has been something paid in case it's needed. Without go full single payer you have to have something to minimize the risk....which insurance does. If you want to lower costs then restrict malpractice court decisions, make pharmaceutical companies lower the cost of drugs, perhaps pay for medical school and pay doctor's less. But you cannot erase a middle man unless you want to shoulder the entire cost of your treatment and with the current costs that is less feasible than insurance.

Feel free to back up your claim, but my understanding that the ACA did place tougher standards on the health insurance industry. There's more that should be done, but what was done improved things in the health care industry. You say Corporatism isn't the answer, and on some level you're definitely correct, but it was corporatism that made it possible in the first place.

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to want an even larger change than what the ACA has done. The problem is that you always have to work with what is actually possible to accomplish in politics. You have to get people to agree to what they were already going to agree to and compromise where they were going to compromise. Change is very hard for most people, and that's true for representatives as well. It's unlikely that people are going to change everything about themselves just because someone else wants them to do so, and that's what politicians like presidents and majority leaders must either accept to gain success or reject and likely accept the failure to pass legislation that comes with that decision.

Of course not. That is why I included the "At least then they might be able to pay rent while they are declaring bankruptcy." bit. As for the rest of your post, my problem with Obamacare is that it isn't Universal Healthcare. Why do you think I would be interested in your justifications for private insurance?

@Serraph105: The backup for my claim is in the first post. See the link. Expanding coverage does not lead to fewer medical bankruptcies. This is largely because poor people can not afford quality insurance, and the insurance they can afford doesn't prevent the need to file for bankruptcy if they have a health crisis.

As for the "change is hard" bit, I understand. On the other hand if you get people to vote you into office based on a promise to give them universal healthcare, and instead you give them a mandate to pay middlemen, they are unlikely to show up to support your successor. Democratic corporatism got us four years of trump. It would be kind of nice if that changed before 2020, even if that change is hard, as we don't want eight years of trump.

I didn't justify insurance but since no one could afford actual health care without it...it's better than nothing.

Private health insurance is the reason why healthcare in America costs so much. It is not the solution to extremely expensive, poor quality healthcare. Besides, the fact that the expected result of a healthcare crisis is bankruptcy, it seems no one can afford actual healthcare with it. They can afford opioids though! So progress I guess.

It's a factor. It's not the only reason. Insurance doesn't make hospitals overcharge for aspirin. Health Insurance doesn't increase fees doctor's charge; malpractice does. Insurance isn't the reason the US pays more for drugs. Those who are not covered also increase insurance costs/premiums.

I mean, it plays a big role obviously. But the cost for services from hospitals/ambulances etc is absurd too.

Edit: Er ya, what Basic said.

Private insurance is absolutely the reason hospitals and drug companies overcharge. A drug company could never charge $5k a month for RA medication without private insurance. They would only be able to sell the product to like 72 people. The Malpractice line is just propaganda. The cost of defending Malpractice suits is measured in the billions. The healthcare industry is measured in trillions.

~edit~ Hey I looked it up!

"A new study reveals that the cost of medical malpractice in the United States is running at about $55.6 billion a year - $45.6 billion of which is spent on defensive medicine practiced by physicians seeking to stay clear of lawsuits. The amount comprises 2.4% of the nation's total health care expenditure."

So in real numbers, malpractice accounts for less then a dollar of the $30 dollars hospitals charge for aspirin. If you completely eliminate it, hospital aspirin prices might drop as low as $29.28.

Nope you are wrong.

Insurance makes blue balloons red and chicken taste like steak.

@Serraph105: @kittennose:

I don't think Serraph disagrees with where you want to end up, he's just saying that without implementing the ACA we'd probably still be stuck on the old system and arguing about death panels.

Which is probably likely considering we failed to pass darn near anything outside of the EMTALA of 1986 for the prior 50 years that the Democrats were trying to pass anything on the subject.

The cost of malpractice. Congrats. I already said that.

It's hard to argue that the ACA isn't a step in the right direction considering a large part of it contained the Medicaid expansion and lowering requirements for obtaining assistance (assuming you want to take all private insurers off the market).

Where I want to end up is a trumpless white house and a Democratic Party that doesn't offer a corporatism as the only viable alternative to whatever the heck conservatives are these days. One that doesn't see making sure giant companies have even more money as the only realistic solution. One that that doesn't ignore the role insurance companies play in making our system the most expensive in the world, while focusing on how holding hospitals accountable for their errors accounts for 2.4% of the 1,875% mark up on over the counter painkillers. The ACA is not a step in that direction. It shouldn't even count as a step.

Heck, it isn't even good politics. Obama got elected by talking about Universal Healthcare while the right was talking about death panels. If we have to go back to talking about them to get something more then milquetoast whimpering, platitudes, and corporatism I am all kinds of down. Who knows, might even see a blue Congress and Senate.

And I don't think @Serraph105 disagrees with that goal, although he's free to correct me if that's not the case.

Having lived through that debate (and being appalled at what was coming out of people's mouths), I disagree that passing the ACA was poor politics as I do not believe something like single payer was in the cards at the time, but I understand where you're coming from.

I would call it very poor politics. If Democrats had drawn a line in the sand and fought it out I do not think the youth vote would have bombed as hard as it did. Hope and change speeches are less likely to get them out the door when their vote has so little impact upon the system. I mean one thing no one should forget was that the ACA was the Republican solution to our healthcare woes. Why on earth should young liberals turn out to support Democrats when they can't manage anything better then the implementation of Republican ideas?

In what way is that good politics?

Stop! Just stop! McCain is NOT a Democrat. He still doesn't hold all the views liberals hold. Just because he's not kissing Donnie's ass, doesn't make him a Democrat. He's a classical conservative, not an alt-right Trumpservative we see today.

I've said I agree with the overall goal at least twice, so yeah no argument there. I feel like what people want is what Bernie or the tea party promised, that is to say an idealistic win where people get most of what was being promised and fought for and they want it all at once, and that's sorta what kittenose wants. As Matt mentioned though, it took 50 years just to get to the ACA enacted, and that only happened because people were willing to compromise. That history lesson is actually pretty good reality check. For all the promises of campaigns, politicians always bump up against the reality of actual governing, having to deal with the differences of fellow lawmakers as well as the rest of the country. If they choose not to then they will likely be out of the job anyways.

Because A) people are benefiting now B) we're closer to a better solution in terms of policy C) we're closer to a better solution in terms of public opinion.

The issue with attempting a hail mary on every play is that you never win any games.

On the other hand, the Democratic party won the 2008 election against Mitt Romney by promising to throw a hail mary or six. Sadly, they then promptly abandoned Universal Healthcare in favor of Romneycare. As a result in 2017 they are desperately pleading with Republicans to help them preserve Mitt Romney's solution to our healthcare woes. Why are people are scared Romneycare might get taken away? Well because the Republicans control the government, control they won because Democrats didn't bother to show up on election day in 2016.

If you think Universal Healthcare is a hail mary, maybe you can also concede it is unwise run on a willingness to throw them? Particularly when in reality they are just going to give everyone the policies pioneered by their political opposites. "Progressive promises, Republican solutions!" does not inspire confidence in the Democratic party.

LOL who's fucking fault is that?

Korea might do us all a favor.....

Mccain is as much as a republican as Arnold was.

@PraetorianMan: And? Two wrong does not make a right.

With the ACA many people have an expensive worthless insurance card. The ACA is going to self destruct. Many on the left want single payer until you can't afford it. Vermont tried it until they realized they could not pay for it. The congress will not let insurance be bought over state lines because the insurance companies don't want that. Tort reform is not passed in the congress because the lawyers don't want it. It doesn't matter what the people want you are not going to get it. The government is not there to serve you but themselves.

They get treatment....it's not worthless. And since trump got in and started trying to dismantle it.........it's more popular than ever. I will if the reps do repeal it.........they won't be in office long.