He did everything short of actually attempting to understand why House Republicans didn’t want to vote for it.
.. Either way, Trump went so far as to threaten primary challenges to those who didn’t sign on.
.. Some Republicans felt that the American Health Care Act wouldn’t do enough to lower premiums
.. The CBO score said that the bill would reduce the costs of insurance eventually . . . but increase them in the first three years. It’s fair to ask whether voters would feel warm to Republicans in fall of 2018 if a GOP replacement plan passed and they still found themselves paying too much for too little care.
.. Avik Roy pointed out that the AHCA “would lead to significant spikes in net insurance premiums for lower-income participants in the individual insurance market, with particular problems for those in their fifties and sixties.”
.. You can’t enact some of Republicans’ favorite proposals, such as tort reform and selling insurance across state lines, without either some support from Senate Democrats or the elimination of the filibuster.
.. almost no one in his caucus wanted to vote no. They wanted to get to yes but simply didn’t see enough good in the bill to make voting for it worthwhile.
.. when it came to the details of the legislation, Trump “either doesn’t know, doesn’t care or both.”
.. Ryan has learned that his wonky style of communication is wasted on Trump given the president’s lack of interest in policy details, Steel said. But he has come to value Trump’s eagerness to exert pressure on wavering Republicans.
.. It appears President Trump cared a lot more about getting a win than about what, exactly, he would be winning. And that lack of focus on the details helped deny him the victory he wanted so badly.
Ralph Nader Exposes Donald Trump and Republicans Scam Healthcare Bill and Budget Cut Plans
Ralph Nader talks about $10 billion/year spent on intercontinental ballistic missile defense.
Suggests that if congressmen cut healthcare, make them share the same plan.
Trump says outrageous things as trial balloons.
Corporatism, Militarism, Racism
Why No GOP Health Care Bill Will Ever Be Really Popular
many members of the public have wildly unrealistic expectations about what their health care should be and how much they should pay for it, and no politician in either party has much incentive to be honest about hard truths. There’s a strong argument that the entire concept of insurance doesn’t work well for health care, compared to, say, auto insurance.
.. The vast majority of drivers will not get in a major accident in any given year, and plenty of drivers will go years and years without an accident. Consumers are comfortable with a system where most years, they will pay in a considerable sum and get nothing from their auto insurer for that year.
Auto insurance works because a lot of people pay in and get little or nothing in return
.. Even if we somehow forced medical schools to admit more students and produce more doctors, U.S. demand for health care is only going to increase as the Baby Boomers age.
.. As of 2015, only 67 percent of doctors take Medicaid, and only 45 percent of doctors take new patients on Medicaid.
.. They still believe that there’s some system out there where they can get the very best care, choose any doctor they like, see any specialist they prefer, and pay little or nothing for it. And until that perception is dispelled, any health-care reform proposal will be greeted as a disappointment.
.. We need to dispense with the cute kid conservative novelty acts and understand that our ideology — unlike liberalism — is not based on feelings and preferences but is instead drawn from a wisdom and understanding of human nature that comes only from hard-won life experience.
How the GOP could still salvage the Obamacare repeal
And key Republican leaders are confident that pressure will eventually weaken the holdouts. Old-timers recall the 2003 vote on the Medicare prescription drug benefit, during which leaders held open the vote for almost three hours while a whip team blocked all the exits from the House floor until they had twisted enough arms.
.. Yet the debate over the repeal bill is the latest sign that Republicans and Democrats are miles apart on health care, and there’s little indication the two parties can bridge that gap anytime soon. In a floor speech Thursday, Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) trashed Republicans’ work on health care, calling their efforts not just a “crumbling and destruction of health care, but also a crumbling of our democracy.”
.. Do nothing and blame the Democrats
Trump said it himself just weeks ago: “I say to Republicans, if you really want to do something good, don’t do anything. … Let it be a disaster.”
Republicans could shelve their quest to overhaul the health care system, hope Obamacare premiums keep spiking and insurers keep fleeing marketplaces and bet they won’t pay the political price in 2018. Trump has already expressed his misgivings about taking ownership of health reform, and privately assured conservative groups that he can pin the whole mess on Democrats if the repeal effort fails.