WHY TRUMPCARE KEEPS FAILING

compromise bill, worked out over several weeks of negotiations between two Republicans: Mark Meadows, a North Carolinian and the head of the right-wing Freedom Caucus; and Tom MacArthur, a New Jerseyan who is co-chair of the Tuesday Group

.. The compromise negotiations laid bare the simple dynamics of health care among Republicans: every action to add votes on the right loses votes in the center.

.. Dent also opposes how the compromise bill would allow states to deregulate insurance markets to allow insurers to deny coverage to people with preëxisting medical conditions. The preëxisting-conditions provision was a core part of Obamacare, and it was one of the few provisions of the law that Trump and Republican leaders promised to retain.

.. And, if the bill were to change in the Senate, there’s a possibility that the Freedom Caucus will abandon the effort all over again.

.. in the Senate, where, among both Republicans and Democrats, the Freedom Caucus is held in low regard.

.. If Obamacare repeal officially dies, Dent said that Trump has one other option: “Start over, deal with health care from the center out, and work with some Democrats.”

 

Who Stopped the Republican Health Bill?

33 Republicans who would not budge from their decisions to vote “no” on the health care bill were key to causing its collapse. They can be divided into three broad categories:

15 Hard-liners

10 Moderates

8 Other Republicans

Exclusive — Discussion About GOP Replacement to Paul Ryan as Speaker of the House Intensifies in White House, Congress

Republican officials in Congress and the White House are now openly discussing finding a GOP replacement to Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) as Speaker of the House, after Ryan failed to pass the American Health Care Act out of the House and misled the public and President Donald Trump when he promised repeatedly the bill would pass.

Ryan was caught on an audio file from October—obtained by Breitbart News and published a couple weeks ago—saying he is “not going to defend Donald Trump—not now, not in the future.” While the audio file does not make the comments clear, Ryan’s staff later claimed that it was specifically about the Access Hollywood tape scandal from the election. The audio tape of Ryan, recorded from a House GOP members’ conference call, does not make that context clear.

 .. the president is concerned that Ryan may not have his—or his agenda’s—best interests at heart. Ryan’s failure to deliver the votes on healthcare cement Trump’s skepticism of Ryan, they say.
.. After the election in November, it was widely reported that there were enough Republican votes to remove Ryan as Speaker—and the only reason conservatives kept him is that Trump won the election and embraced Ryan. But now Trump may perceive Ryan as a burden rather than someone who can help enact his agenda
.. It has gotten so far along in the process that alternative names are being thrown around—anyone from House Freedom Caucus chairman Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC), to former Freedom Caucus chair Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), to House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, to House Appropriations Committee chairman Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ)—to Reps. Darrell Issa (R-CA), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), and Peter Roskam (R-IL), according to one senior House GOP aide.
.. The fact that Frelinghuysen—a committee chairman of the powerful House panel that oversees the disbursement of government cash–came out publicly against the legislation is proof that Ryan has problems inside the House GOP conference that go much deeper than the House Freedom Caucus. It is worth noting that Frelinghuysen is a direct descendant of America’s founding fathers, and his family has served in Congress in every generation since the 1700s.

.. There are ongoing discussions in House offices conference-wide whether Republicans should use the same tactic that conservatives used in 2015 to remove now-former Speaker John Boehner from the House. Back then, Meadows—then just a member of the House Freedom Caucus—introduced what is called a resolution with a motion to vacate the chair.
.. Asked explicitly whether President Trump has confidence in Ryan remaining as Speaker, White House press secretary Sean Spicer would not answer Breitbart News, yes or no.
.. quoted a senior administration official to note that “The president’s aides are planning to blame Ryan if there is an embarrassing defeat on a bill that has been a Republican goal for more than seven years.”

.. Bloomberg’s piece also questions the future of White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, a Ryan ally who previously was Republican National Committee chairman and was also a central part of pushing this bill, alongside his longtime friend from Wisconsin.“A Trump associate who requested anonymity to discuss the president’s views on the matter said that White House chief of staff Reince Priebus may also be imperiled,

.. The Wisconsin Republican unmasked himself as the man most capable of demolishing his own party and the Trump presidency,” the Washington Times‘ Ralph Hallow wrote late Thursday, calling Ryan’s bill “a piece of moderate GOP trash.”

.. But as Ryan lost significant numbers of Republicans conference-wide ahead the vote, something Ryan finally admitted to Trump at the White House earlier on Friday after misleading for weeks on the level of GOP support

.. Ryan–through a variety of political action committees affiliated with his leadership PAC–has been targeting Republicans with advertisements on television and radio in their districts. The attack ads notably only hit Republicans, and not Democrats, and are something Ryan explicitly promised he would not do when he ran for Speaker in the wake of Boehner’s resignation. Boehner’s downfall was in large part due to advertisements he ran against his own members.

.. “Meadows is the acting Speaker of the House,”

 

White House moves to tweak health care bill to win over conservatives

White House budget director Mick Mulvaney is working with Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), chairman of the hard-line conservative coalition, to strike Obamacare’s lengthy list of essential benefits that health plans now have to cover, according to a senior administration official.

Some Republicans have long argued that insurers should be able to sell skimpier coverage that, for example, wouldn’t cover maternity or mental health services.