Yeah but when people find out their plans don't cover hospitals and drugs among other necessary things people will be off board fast. If the insurance companies are smart they will slowly remove drug coverage over time so if just fades away. Then it will take a couple years when millions of people pay more for medication than premiums and not in a good way. If they don't phase it out over time then it will cause a huge backlash as soon as any new law takes effect. Things like hospital rooms will come about a little slower as people learn they don't have coverage and they can pay the hundreds a day out of pocket.

Here is what will happen: insurers will gut plans as much as they can and premiums will still increase slightly. Maybe only 9% instead of 18%. Ultimately people who keep their insurance will pay more for only a fraction of the coverage. Nobody will get better coverage AND lower premiums with whatever the AHCA ends up being.

We're really still calling this "ACHA???"

Trumpcare
Ryancare
Republicare
Repiblidontcare

ANYTHING

****ING DEMOCRATS EVERY ****ING TIME WITH THE FAIL

The problem is that this bill is a tax cut bill, not healthcare bill

You can't take that money out of the bill and craft a better solution for the American people

You have to choose Americans or tax cut for rich; Democrats choose to help Americans and Republicans choose to help the rich get tax cuts

Usually Republicans can dress up the tax cuts enough to get 50% of the country on board, but with this plan directly affecting everyone, they only get 17% or worse support for this blatant reverse Robin Hood

https://twitter.com/TheOnion/status/877210195746840576

Wealthcare, presented by the GOP

"Hell, I'm all for this new Wealthcare, it's about time the government started helping with money instead of just taking it from me!"

They were on the floor calling it TrumpCare yesterday

https://twitter.com/TopherSpiro/stat...50763373907968

Unable to get either the "moderate" or "libertarian" sides on board. Anything offered to one group will only likely further alienate the other. Now how hard will McConnell twist arms?

loool.

These pigs are so damn greedy. They would have their precious TaxCutCare by now if they weren't holding off for like $50 each lol.

Posted this in the Pres thread, thought I'd also drop it here.

I'm assuming Sasse is on the freedom caucus side. So you have Cruz, Lee, Paul, Sasse on that side. You have Capito, Collins and Murkowski on the moderate side. You have Heller, Cassidy and Portman undecided.

They'll make the bill worse and lock in the four freedom caucus votes. They'll probably leverage Capito somehow, that could go either way - carrot or stick. (We let you in on this committee, are you really going to vote against it? Either you get to trumpet your role in repealing Obamacare or we'll primary you.)

They'll threaten Heller (Want any help from the RNC during your campaign next year, buddy? Better get to yes...), Cassidy (It'd be a real shame if you got primaried for supporting Muslim Kenyan Barack Hussein Obamacare. You do remember you're from Louisiana, right?) and Portman (not sure how they play this one) to get in line... Then they'll win.

Now, where is Gardner on the list? The only way we block this IMO is more moderates on the list than freedom caucusers.

Portman is another complete piece of **** who somehow gets a pass and is inexplicably called a moderate despite always falling in line. His big push this time around is to phase out Medicaid over 7 years instead of 3.

Heller is never voting yes

I agree that he and Collins are the most likely no votes on the list. Which is part of the reason I think they won't bother offering him anything and will instead just threaten him.

I also wonder why Flake isn't on that list? He's up for re-election next year and isn't a lock to win. The numbers are a little better for him than Heller, but I still think he has a high likelihood of losing, especially if he votes yes on this.

Is Flake really vulnerable? I've been hearing this a lot but haven't really seen anything in depth on it. I know there was talk of AZ going for Clinton before it didn't.

Senate bill gonna be worse than the House bill. Kudos to them really.

Trump only won by 3% or so. AZ obv isn't trumpland with the wall thing but dems gotta give it a shot, better off there than say trying to retain the WV senate seat. Otherwise it's full defense in 18 for the senate outside of Heller.

The best article title ever, if you're a Bojack Horseman fan:

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-polit...secret-content

Last-minute cramming before the big final. This is fine.

8 years of whining about Obamacare and they literally wait until the night before voting to even start writing a bill.

It depends how you define vulnerable, I guess. Here are the last few Senate/Presidential races in Arizona:

2004:
Bush wins 54.9-44.4

2006:
Kyl wins 53.3-43.5

2008:
McCain wins 53.6-45.1 (Presidential)

2010
McCain wins 58.7-34.5 (Senate)

2012:
Flake wins 49.2-46.2
Romney wins 53.7-44.6

2016
McCain wins 53.7-40.7 (5.4% went to the Green party)
Trump wins 48.7-45.1

Given the current climate, it's winnable. Nevada is the easiest to flip, followed by Arizona. After that, based on Cook PVI it's Cruz's seat in Texas - obviously a big gap between Arizona and Texas, so there's not much of a choice here. They've gotta go after Flake aggressively.

There best/only shot at flipping a seat elsewhere would be to funnel money to a conservative third party challenger in the general election and try to siphon off enough of the Republican vote to make it competitive.

I disagree with the bolded. The Dems who are in red states obviously did something right to win there, they know their states, and they should be given the full resources to hold those valuable seats. There are two seats that are realistically flippable, Nevada and Arizona, and the Democrats should spare no expense on those. This isn't an either/or situation.

From what's leaking out the Senate bill takes all the bad things about Obamacare and makes them worse. Lowering the subsidies in amount and who gets them, gutting the responsibility of insurers to pay for treatment for pre existing conditions and completely gutting Medicaid.

Washington Post comes through again with a bombshell. Everyone here in politardia needs to fire off some emails to representatives.

.

One interesting thing I saw in senate bill is that low income people would qualify for subsidies even if they don't qualify for Medicaid. For states without Medicaid expansion people below the poverty line get zero subsidies right now.

That being said Medicaid is going to be destroyed so it probably doesn't matter. Also since the majority of people in nursing homes are paying with Medicaid I suspect a massive crisis on multiple levels when they gut Medicaid.