Trumpcare down in flames

39 comments on “Trumpcare down in flames ”

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1. Ad 1

   25 March 2017 at 8:54 am

   President Trump has just killed the vote on his health reforms.

   That is one huge campaign promise probably fully dead.

   After his bodacious-scale brinkmanship to demand all Republicans vote for it and that he would “go after them” if they didn’t , they stared him down. They won, and he looks really weak as a result. I don’t think this will come to a vote again.

   For a multiple of reasons, Donald Trump is looking like the best broad voter lesson against the Republicans in many, many years.

   He should have been the great uniting force that brought all the Congress majority, all the Senate majority, all the Republican state legislatures, all the Republican governorships, into one grand front, unite the party, and roll out a full and comprehensive reform programme.

   Instead we have total chaos in government across Washington – all inside around 100 days since he was inaugurated.
2. dv 2

   25 March 2017 at 9:28 am

   Why did it lose,
   Was is because it went too far
   or
   was it because it didn’t go far enough?

   (Or both reasons!!!!)
   • dukeofurl 2.1

     25 March 2017 at 9:51 am

     This means the Democrats in the Senate can focus their efforts on defeating his SCOTUS pick rather than trying to derail Trumpcare if it had passed the house.
   • Matthew Whitehead 2.2

     25 March 2017 at 1:57 pm

     Basically the Republicans that thought it went too far revolted once Trump conceded enough ground to those who thought it didn’t go far enough. XD
     • dv 2.2.1

       25 March 2017 at 2:00 pm

       Thanks Matthew.
       Sort of a buggers muddle!!!

       Thank god they are not in charge of anything important.
       Oh but wait…….
       • Matthew Whitehead 2.2.1.1

         25 March 2017 at 3:19 pm

         Better they screw up at screwing up than succeed at screwing up, IMO. It’s easier to vote out a bunch of disorganised clowns than to shove out a united bunch of liars twisting the truth.
3. D'Esterre 3

   25 March 2017 at 10:53 am

   This isn’t good news. So-called Obamacare is a deeply flawed model. See this:
   http://www.dailywire.com/news/12146/11-biggest-problems-obamacare-aaron-bandler
   • Anthony 3.1

     25 March 2017 at 11:07 am

     D’Esterre, even if ObamaCare is flawed, the Republican Bill was far more so.

     It would have made the lives of millions of the poorest Americans far worse. The moderate Republicans knew this, and saw tweaks that were pushing it even further to the right.

     The so-called ‘Freedom Caucus’ (the far right capitalists ones who seem to believe it is the right and patriotic duty of every poor person to die sleeping under a bridge) were demanding changes that made this worse than anything the US has seen in healthcare in generations.

     This was always a loser for the Republicans, but the proposed changes were a loser for the American people. It needed to fail: I’m glad it did. Now perhaps the Republicans will work with the Democrats to make Obamacare better (great again?).
   • dukeofurl 3.2

     25 March 2017 at 11:48 am

     yeah . Its the same with democracy, deeply flawed. But not when you think of the alternatives.
   • RedBaronCV 3.3

     25 March 2017 at 1:52 pm

     Yep single payer would have been better
     The wars the USA has are responsible for the huge deficit and states (mainly Republican) that didn’t expand medicaid have the most disgruntled voters.

     Poor talking points there
4. dukeofurl 4

   25 March 2017 at 11:46 am

   This was compelling
   “Freedom Caucus’s absolutist demands have obscured a more fundamental point on which it and the Republican leadership agree: downsizing and hollowing out Medicaid. Andy Slavitt, former acting administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, warned in a tweet before the Ryan bill came out: “Don’t get distracted by exchanges. The big issue is dramatic cuts in Medicaid to pay for huge tax cuts.

   Medicaid is a more fundamental ‘single payer’ program for the poor and elderly
   http://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/24/opinion/the-democrats-next-move-on-health-care.html
5. Siobhan 5

   25 March 2017 at 12:04 pm

   A ‘win’ for Brietbart is now ‘Good News’.
   This is what we have come to.
   Thanks Democrats for sticking to the wrong policies with the wrong candidate, and kudos for deciding to continue down that same miserable path come what may….
   • red-blooded 5.1

     25 March 2017 at 12:19 pm

     “Thanks Democrats for sticking to the wrong policies with the wrong candidate…”

     Hey, Siobhan, has it occurred to you that the Dems had the right to choose their own candidate and that they did so according to their own priorities and values, and that they didn’t have to consult you..?

     Plus, let’s focus on the point of the thread: Trump is appalling, and he’s also being shown to be incompetent. His party is a shambles and – thank goodness – they haven’t been able to pull down one of the major accomplishments of the last government. Obamacare has significant flaws but it’s made a big difference to millions of Americans who had no cover before it came in, and Trump’s intentions were awful. I’m glad they crashed and burned.
     • Matthew Whitehead 5.1.1

       25 March 2017 at 2:26 pm

       OK, you’ve gone a bit far there mate. The democrats have a responsibility to choose a candidate that serves the electorate and their constituencies in particular, not the Democratic Party. That candidate was Sanders and everyone, even the democrats, know it, they were just too chickenshit as an institution to give him a fair place at the table and keep their thumbs off the scale because he would have cost a lot of consultants their jobs, and basically cleaned up the party.

       Primary voters aren’t to blame for that, but literally any party official who endorsed Clinton is, especially those that are pushing for more corporatist strategy going forward, which is basically the easiest way to ensure two terms of Trump.

       Just because Trump is a shambles at actually governing doesn’t mean the Democrats can beat him by being in bed with Wall Street. They need to fight fire with fire and put left-wing populists in significant positions of power and primary the worst corporatists so they have to leave the party, and then they can sweep the next elections and undo most of the damage this clown will have done within 2 years. Anything less and they are risking a full four years with Republicans controlling the whole government, held back only by their lack of unity, which may not be a problem afer the 2018 elections because the more extreme Republicans may successfully primary a lot of the somewhat reasonable-ish ones on the logic that “Trump is failing because we’re not supporting him enough.” And if you don’t think that’s likely, you need to look at polls that split questions into Republicans and Democrats, because right now Trump is hugely popular among Republicans, and his unpopularity is due to losing Democrats instantly and slowly bleeding independents.
       • Craig H 5.1.1.1

         25 March 2017 at 2:50 pm

         Hillary won the popular vote by a wide margin – they simply underestimated/miscalculated around the loss of the rust belt states.
         • Matthew Whitehead 5.1.1.1.1

           25 March 2017 at 3:14 pm

           Actually, she won the popular vote by an unacceptably narrow margin against a terrible presidential candidate who shouldn’t have been a serious contender in either the electoral college or the popular vote. Any result that didn’t mop the floor with him was a loss, because it was the Democratic Party not running their best candidate, and you should always run your best candidates. It’s acceptable to disagree who they might be pending evidence, but the evidence was in- Hillary was as bad as John Kerry, and worse than Al Gore, who at least actually won the electoral college if it weren’t for the counter-factual intervention of a conservative Supreme Court. Polling shows that Bernie could have won the vote by much wider margins, and he was excellent at persuading that very rust belt swing group you mention that his policies are better than Trump’s.
           • red-blooded 5.1.1.1.1.1

             25 March 2017 at 8:18 pm

             Polling shows lots of things, MW. Let’s remember that polling showed Clinton wiping the floor with Trump. Presumably, that was part of the reason why her team didn’t feel the need to focus so much on those few swing states (and BTW polling showed most of those states falling to Clinton). Plus, maybe some Dems who supported Sanders thought the election was in the bag and didn’t want to compromise by voting Clinton…

             Let’s remember too that polling often over-estimates support for strongly left candidates/parties. Polling often shows considerably higher support for the Greens than they actually get when people go into the voting booth.

             As for your “worse than Al Gore” comparison; Clinton won 2.1% more of the popular vote than Trump ( Gore won 0.51% more than Bush) and more Americans voted for her than for any other losing US candidate.
             http://edition.cnn.com/2016/12/21/politics/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-popular-vote-final-count/
             https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_elections_in_which_the_winner_lost_the_popular_vote
             • Matthew Whitehead …

               26 March 2017 at 6:02 pm

               Polling did not show Clinton wiping the floor with Trump until his campaign imploded after the Billy Bush tape emerged. At the same time Bernie was polling six or eight points ahead of Trump, Clinton was either narrowly LOSING or narrowly winning.

               Polling doesn’t always overestimate support for left-wing parties. In fact, sometimes precisely the opposite is true, it really depends on the political climate. Polling is accurate within its limitations, which we saw with the popular vote in the US election, which was within the margin of error for Clinton’s pre-election polling.

               Demographics from exit polls actually suggest a pretty strong showing from demographics that were strongly for Sanders, so there’s no solid information suggesting that people didn’t realise the election was important. There were some Bernie or Bust people who didn’t vote, sure, because people didn’t like Ms. Clinton. That is her responsibility as a candidate, not the voters’.
               • red-blooded …

                 26 March 2017 at 6:56 pm

                 People are responsible for their own voting decisions.

                 Those who saw themselves as Dems or left-leaning but didn’t vote because they didn’t like Clinton helped to give the presidency to Trump. The US is basically a two party system. There are usually plenty of choices within the parties in the primary phase, but by the time the presidential ballot is underway not voting for one party’s candidate is basically voting for the other. This is a little more complex, of course, depending on the voting dynamics of individual states.

                 Sanders wasn’t chosen as the Dem’s candidate. People on this site have been very critical of the Democrats because of that, but given that Sanders was an Independent senator and continued to insist that he was an independent rather than a member of the Democrats well into 2015, perhaps it’s not surprising that the party officials and established party members were less enthusiastic about his candidacy than you were.

                 I liked a lot of what Sanders said and I think he woke up a lot of people in the States to a leftist viewpoint that they had been missing in their national consciousness. He helped to move the Dems to the left in some ways. I don’t think we can pillory them for choosing Clinton over him, though. I also don’t think we can assume that he would have beaten Trump.
       • McFlock 5.1.1.2

         25 March 2017 at 7:04 pm

         No, the democrats are obliged to vote for the candidates they want. Not the ones you want, or the ones that you think have a better chance of beating the republicans.

         That’s how democracy works.

         Voters vote for the candidate they support. Otherwise they’re voting against their principles, and it’s just a question of how far against their principles they feel comfortable going.
         • timeforacupoftea 5.1.1.2.1

           25 March 2017 at 9:51 pm

           In Minnesota a true blue Democrat state the voters were saying vote anyone barn Hilary PLEASE !!!!!.
           If I remember correctly Minnesotians had a dozen independants to vote for, certainly bought the blue vote down but not enough to knock poor old Hilary off the top. So the red surge was on there to but not enough this time.
         • Matthew Whitehead 5.1.1.2.2

           26 March 2017 at 6:06 pm

           People’s votes are theirs, sure.

           But that doesn’t mean it’s okay for powerful people in the democratic party to try and stitch up primaries for terrible candidates that don’t poll well because they’re buddies who will take lots of corporate bribes.

           Parties exist to secure policy for their constituencies. The Democrats, however, have forgotten that in favour of securing donor money, and don’t deserve to be voted for until they learn their lesson.

           Lots of democrats didn’t want Hillary. Not all of them were primary voters. That is, somewhat, their fault, as not turning out means you have to put up with who other people vote for. But we can absolutely blame high-level democrats for foisting a losing candidate who had no voter enthusiasm onto the public and helping set up a win for a President that’s even worse than George W. Bush, the president who was literally synonymous with the words “miserable failure.”
           • McFlock 5.1.1.2.2.1

             26 March 2017 at 6:23 pm

             Nobody has yet managed to explain how the democrat hierarchy managed to “stitch up” the primaries, given that the elections were run by the individual states.

             Sure, some of them said mean things about Sanders, who had walked into the party months before and tried to change its direction. But he lost the vote. How was the vote rigged?
6. adam 6

   25 March 2017 at 12:55 pm

   People, people on the ground, people going to town halls, people phoning their representative, people, people, people. People like you and me, stopped this.

   This is what happens when people get organised, this was democrat’s and republican voters working together.

   People have the power – they actually have to use it.
7. Draco T Bastard 7

   25 March 2017 at 1:37 pm

   Almost makes you think it wasn’t ever about the policy itself.

   House Rs voted over 60x to repeal Obamacare while Obama was president. They voted 0 times on it under Trump, and are now ready to move on.
8. North 8

   25 March 2017 at 1:42 pm

   The Trump administration increasingly seems comprised of weird caracitures. Like CNN’s broadcasting a travelling vaudeville show.
9. Skeptic 9

   25 March 2017 at 3:09 pm

   I think Trump is under siege – his twitter attacks have rebounded on him with ferocity and his ad-libing has made him look stupid. He can’t get his cabinet together because the people he’s picked are corrupt/idiotic or don’t want a bar of him. His executive orders are illegal because no-one bothered to read him the relevant law. His famed deal-making is a disaster as he can’t even get the support of his own massive majorities in the House or Senate. His pet projects – the Wall and Travel Bans – have come to grief either through cost or breaching of civil rights. His expensive spoiled family is costing the Secret Service double what any President before has cost. He’s made enemies among allies and earned the contempt of enemies – his foreign policies – where he has any – are a not so subtle joke. His KGB controller is out of control killing opposition right, left and centre. The FBI is investigating his campaign staff to root out Russian collusion. IS there anything I’ve left out? Well he’s got about 30 odd days of his 100 day honeymoon left – Maybe he just might last that distance, but for how much longer? Worse – Pence is waiting in the wings.
   • Johan 9.1

     25 March 2017 at 5:19 pm

     Trump is a clown for all the world to see. No American bank would give poor Donald a loan simply because he has difficulties paying back his loans. He/family has borrowed massively from Deutsche Bank and the Chinese. American politics has sunk to a new low. Many of the disenfranchised Americans were counting on a saviour to help them out of their difficulties but only found that he was Agent Orange.
     • Skeptic 9.1.1

       25 March 2017 at 5:27 pm

       And the lesson to be learned by NZ voters at the up coming election is? And do you really think the poor dumbed down joe average kiwi who’s been spoonfed a diet of MSM Murdockism via TVNZ and Fairfax know enough to make an informed decision that’s in their own interest? Yeah right!!
       • red-blooded 9.1.1.1

         25 March 2017 at 8:23 pm

         “do you really think the poor dumbed down joe average kiwi who’s been spoonfed a diet of MSM Murdockism via TVNZ and Fairfax know enough to make an informed decision that’s in their own interest? Yeah right!!”

         So what do you suggest instead, Skeptic? Given that the media landscape is not going to change before September..?
         • Skeptic 9.1.1.1.1

           26 March 2017 at 11:02 am

           Get a decent PR firm and use their methods against them. Task the professionals with putting a single themed message across and trust them to do so. Just like Lange and Clark did.
           Have “handlers” who know their business groom our leaders so they say and do the correct things for the media image to be presented. BUT make damned sure WE control the message.
           That message has to be on a single theme – “that we demand fairness for all New Zealanders – not just the wealthy. That every Kiwi is important and Government’s JOB is to look after the vulnerable and deliver policies that spread the wealth for the benefit of ALL and not just the wealthy few”. This should flow onto every policy – health housing, education, employment, national resources etc. They should all be linked into our message and refer back to it at every opportunity. Clear concise and coordinated are the keywords for any political campaign.
           Secondly, we should attack Joyce, undermine and undercut him at every opportunity so that he become afraid to open his mouth in case we make mince-meat of what he says. Why Joyce? Because he’s the designated hitter for National. Hit their hard man where it hurts and the rest become like putty.
           This shouldn’t be just one strategy – it has to be one of a multiple themed, but single purposed tactics – that way Joe Public will get a multiplicity of ideals that not just seem to be fair for him, but are proven to be fair for him and his family and community – all his community.
     • millsy 9.1.2

       26 March 2017 at 10:52 am

       I love how these millionaires rack up these huge loans and are allowed to just get away with not paying a single cent, while poor people pretty much have their lives ruined because they owe $200 to Baycorp.

       It would be fun for once, watching baliffs (all sheriff’s as they are called there) come in to Trump Tower and start taking away his stuff. Will never happen, but dreams are free.
10. ropata 10

    25 March 2017 at 10:17 pm

    The Atlantic: Obamacare: The Republican Waterloo

    Conservatives once warned that Obamacare would produce the Democratic Waterloo. Their inability to accept the principle of universal coverage has, instead, led to their own defeat.

    The following blog post got the author fired from Conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation:

    We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat.

    There were leaders who knew better, who would have liked to deal. But they were trapped. Conservative talkers on Fox and talk radio had whipped the Republican voting base into such a frenzy that deal-making was rendered impossible. How do you negotiate with somebody who wants to murder your grandmother? Or—more exactly—with somebody whom your voters have been persuaded to believe wants to murder their grandmother?

    I’ve been on a soapbox for months now about the harm that our overheated talk is doing to us. Yes it mobilizes supporters—but by mobilizing them with hysterical accusations and pseudo-information, overheated talk has made it impossible for representatives to represent and elected leaders to lead. […]

    So today’s defeat for free-market economics and Republican values is a huge win for the conservative entertainment industry. Their listeners and viewers will now be even more enraged, even more frustrated, even more disappointed in everybody except the responsibility-free talkers on television and radio. For them, it’s mission accomplished. For the cause they purport to represent, it’s Waterloo all right: ours.
    • Ad 10.1

      26 March 2017 at 8:31 pm

      The Heritage Foundation should stop crying like a baby, strap on something useful and prepare to organize a salvage of the Trump+Republican agenda.

      In the coming month they have a budget to drive through that will gut everything excluding defence, intelligence, and veterans affairs.

      It’s of the scale that is far greater than anything Reagan ever tried, and will be socially devastating.
11. Bruce 11

    25 March 2017 at 11:41 pm

    https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10154549923402297&id=62507427296

    Bill seems to be saying the tea party wouldn’ t support it because it didn’the go far enough

    Sony wrong clip it’s a good watch but this the Healthcare one
    https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10154549884492297&id=62507427296
12. joe90 12

    26 March 2017 at 11:45 am

    Lying liar lies.

    President Trump: I never said repealing and replacing Obamacare would be easy. Really? Let's check the tape: pic.twitter.com/3Pk675UAqn— NowThis (@nowthisnews) March 24, 2017

    https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/845422234869018625
    • Johan 12.1

      26 March 2017 at 4:13 pm

      Yes indeed very easy;-)) Donald is a clown and American politics is seen worldwide as sick joke! The only true democratic country in North America is Canada. Here the gov’t has installed and operated a medicare program since the 1960’s, despite fierce opposition from the Canadian Medical Association and the private insurance industry.
13. rhinocrates 13

    26 March 2017 at 3:06 pm

    I’ve already had one acquaintance (privileged, well-off, white) in the Judean People’s Front/People’s Front of Judea tell me that the salvation of 24 million people’s health care is A Bad Thing because… something mumble, Hillary!

    Head/desk.
14. Ad 14

    26 March 2017 at 8:28 pm

    White House is doing the reasonable thing and throwing Paul Ryan under a bus over at Fox.

    Next question: which Republican will replace Paul Ryan as Speaker?

    And who the hell would want the job?

    Pennsylvania Avenue is going to quickly resemble that Russian saying about the best way to ride a sleigh with the wolves running after you:

    throw bodies overboard regularly.

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