Levin and the other authors that, “despite the despair that many progressives may be feeling right now, there really actually is a model for success.” Unfortunately, it belonged to the Tea Party.
The document analyzes the strategic wisdom of the Tea Party, focussing on its local activism and emphasis on defense rather than offense. “We tried to be really clear in the document that, like it or not, the Tea Party really _did _have significant accomplishments—facing more difficult odds than we face today
.. Jim Manley, a Democratic strategist and a former staffer for Senators Edward Kennedy and Harry Reid, told me that he was impressed that the document “urges people to play defensive baseball.” “I understand the need for a positive agenda, as do they,” he added. “But I think they’re correct in their assessment on copying some of the tactics of the Tea Party and trying to make Republicans feel pain or pay a price for some of the stuff they’re about to vote on.”
.. “We were three of the only people who_ _had Twitter accounts,” Levin explained. “We also didn’t want there to be some kind of mysterious, anonymous document that came out and inspired folks to speculate about its author. To avoid that scenario, we put a handful of names on it.”
The Americans Who Saved Health Insurance
The bills had virtually no independent defenders. This intellectual honesty — the avoidance of false balance — helped the public understand that this wasn’t a classic partisan fight with each side making some good points. It was a case of cynical politicians willing to hurt their constituents in order to keep a misguided campaign promise.
.. Senator Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, told me that he thought the two senators’ history of partisan independence was crucial: “Susan and Lisa knew you could stand up to the Republican leadership and survive.”
.. Chief Justice John Roberts is a movement conservative. Yet he cast the vote that saved Obamacare in 2012 partly because he understood that a partisan shredding of the safety net could undermine his institution — the Supreme Court.
John McCain is also deeply conservative. Yet, like Roberts, he realized that taking health coverage from millions, in a hasty, secretive process, could damage his favorite institution — the Senate.
When his colleagues didn’t heed his warning to abandon that approach, McCain flipped his vote. “No,” he announced at 1:30 a.m. on Friday, shocking Democrats who had given up on him and Republicans who had assumed he wouldn’t really break ranks on principle.
.. They had also held their own town halls, and they knew the bills were deeply unpopular.
The Republican Health-Care Fiasco
Senator John McCain cast the deciding vote to jettison Republicans’ latest Obamacare reform effort, handing a victory to Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, moderates whose opposition to any substantive health-care reform has become nearly intractable. But the legislation for which Republican leaders asked their conference to vote was so unpalatable, and the process so objectionable, that it is almost difficult to fault him. The Congressional Budget Office suggested that the “skinny” health legislation on which the Senate voted would raise premiums by as much as 20 percent. It assumed that since the legislation ended the fines for going without insurance, many healthy people would drop coverage, and premiums would have to pay for a sicker population. The estimate may be too high, since the CBO has repeatedly overestimated the impact of the fines. But it almost certainly had the basic story right.
Senator McCain may have been taken aback as well by the CBO’s projection that the bill would result in 16 million fewer people having insurance coverage — something Democrats nearly unanimously portrayed as “taking away” insurance from all of those people. In fact, this projection is based almost entirely on the end of the fines. The CBO estimates that once they can make a decision free of the threat of fines, 15 million people will forgo coverage.
.. We are willing to bet that McCain didn’t know any of this. A lot of health-policy experts are unaware of it too. The legislation was unveiled, after all, only a few hours before the vote. There were no hearings on it. The CBO had only provided the relevant numbers the same day, with the inferences we have made above left unstated.
Republican leaders such as Mitch McConnell were asking senators to vote for a poorly understood bill that would likely raise premiums in the expectation that something better would emerge from a conference committee between the House and the Senate. But there was a chance that the House would end up just passing the skinny bill. And if the conference committee was capable of coming up with something better that could get 51 votes in the Senate, why couldn’t the Senate come up with that “something better” itself?
.. Here Senator McCain deserves criticism for naïveté. He believes that there should be bipartisan reforms to Obamacare (which is a far cry from what he had previously campaigned on).
But the Democrats have made it clear that the only “reforms” that interest them are increased taxpayer commitments to shoring up the program, including increased subsidies to the insurers. In practice, this option would amount to higher spending and, at best, a fig leaf of reform; it would become law through the votes of nearly all Democrats and a handful of Republicans.
.. Option three, the “let it burn” approach, is simply untenable.
.. Option three is likely, then, to be option two in slow motion.
.. Consideration of the alternatives should bring Republicans back to option one. Try, try again, but this time with more deliberation.
As Trump steams, Senate Republicans consider new repeal effort
Some congressional Republicans are backing a proposal by Sen. Lindsey Graham they hope can get 50 Republican votes.
The White House-health care huddle came just hours before Trump savaged Senate Republicans in a series of Saturday tweets for failing to repeal Obamacare. If the Senate doesn’t pass a bill soon, Trump warned, he may halt Obamacare payments subsidizing health plans for low-income individuals — an idea adamantly opposed by Republicans and Democrats alike.
Trump also appeared to take a personal shot at lawmakers, seemingly warning that he could revoke their own health benefits on the exchanges.
.. Senate rules don’t appear to be the problem. From the “skinny repeal” bill to a McConnell designed replacement bill to a so-called “clean” repeal bill, all GOP efforts failed to get 50 votes in the Senate this week.
.. The South Carolina senator has been talking to Meadows about the bill as a possible way forward that both chambers could accept. Several GOP governors have signaled interest to Graham for the bill as a way to keep funding levels steady and give states more control.
.. Republican senators are angry at Trump for calling Murkowski this week to rethink her opposition to the GOP’s effort, several Republican sources said.
The moderate Alaska senator told E&E News that the conversation on Tuesday with Trump was “not a very pleasant call.” Several Republicans said privately Trump’s heavy hand derailed any chance of getting Murkowski to support the “skinny” bill,