agnosto wrote:
Do none of the GOP realize that they'll have to present an option to replace the ACA at some point? I think that axing the healthcare of millions of people might upset some few....at least.

 agnosto wrote:
Do none of the GOP realize that they'll have to present an option to replace the ACA at some point? I think that axing the healthcare of millions of people might upset some few....at least.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
Ryan is supposedly going to release an alternative eventually.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 agnosto wrote:
Do none of the GOP realize that they'll have to present an option to replace the ACA at some point? I think that axing the healthcare of millions of people might upset some few....at least.

That would require critical and logical thinking which, if the Republican presidential nomination campaign is anything to go by, is very much lacking in the party leaders.

 agnosto wrote:
Eventually....I'm sure that comforts the people he would prefer to rob of healthcare today. So genius.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 agnosto wrote:
Do none of the GOP realize that they'll have to present an option to replace the ACA at some point? I think that axing the healthcare of millions of people might upset some few....at least.

That would require critical and logical thinking which, if the Republican presidential nomination campaign is anything to go by, is very much lacking in the party leaders.

Someone responded to a post of mine with the republican "plan"... a thing which I've never heard nor seen anything about until that post.

Making Heath insurance transportable? It'd be nice, but it's a pipe dream, the way things are now.

Going back to "the way things were before"?? Yeah... that's an excellent fething idea. Let's make millions of Americans "uninsurable" again, that'll lower the cost of healthcare in the country

I'm with a number of folks here who wish the GOP would face the fething music, and realize that ACA and healthcare in general is here to stay. The ONLY way you're gonna get rid of it, is to pass something that's actually BETTER than ACA.

 agnosto wrote:
Eventually....I'm sure that comforts the people he would prefer to rob of healthcare today. So genius.

 whembly wrote:
Transportable healthcare isn't a pipe dream.

Most large healthcare organizations would rather have a large pool of patients over a geographical region not dictated by state boundries.

I think the absolute first step, is for voters/politicians to unequivocally decide whether or not "healthcare" and "insurance" is a state or a federal thing.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Transportable healthcare isn't a pipe dream.

Most large healthcare organizations would rather have a large pool of patients over a geographical region not dictated by state boundries.

I think the absolute first step, is for voters/politicians to unequivocally decide whether or not "healthcare" and "insurance" is a state or a federal thing.

I think the problem is, in many ways, a number of health insurance companies have nearly the same sort of local monopolies as companies like Comcast and other cable companies do.

Yes, insurance companies want larger pools of customers, but at the same time, I think they rather enjoy that virtual monopoly, even if it means less in the way of potential income by way of "competition" Additionally, there are places where, insurance board commissioners are former CEOs and executives of the very companies they are supposed to be regulating, it's actually a pretty nasty little circle.

 agnosto wrote:
Do none of the GOP realize that they'll have to present an option to replace the ACA at some point? I think that axing the healthcare of millions of people might upset some few....at least.

Chris Cillizza wrote:John McCain’s cold-blooded revenge on Ted Cruz



A great man once said: The arc of the moral universe is long, and it bends toward revenge.

John McCain proved the power of revenge on Wednesday night when asked about his longtime nemesis Ted Cruz's eligibility to be president, despite being born in Canada.

“I don’t know the answer to that,” McCain said on the "Chris Merrill Show" on Wednesday. “I know it came up in my race because I was born in Panama, but I was born in the Canal Zone, which is a territory. Barry Goldwater was born in Arizona when it was a territory when he ran in 1964."

Boom goes the dynamite.

It's no secret that Cruz is hated by McCain and lots and lots of the Washington establishment. McCain famously/infamously called Cruz (and a few other tea party types) "wacko birds" — he later apologized — and has repeatedly clashed with the Texas senator over what he believes to be the latter's tendency to grandstand. (McCain detractors will roll their eyes at the idea of him being apoplectic over other people grandstanding.)

What has been less clear is how the GOP establishment's white-hot hatred for Cruz could manifest itself in the Republican presidential primary. This is how.

By McCain giving a "you know, that's a good question" response to the question of whether Cruz is eligible to be president, he keeps the story — not a good one for the Texas senator — very much alive.

Now, the media narrative becomes that it's not just Donald Trump saying things because (a) he's Donald Trump and (b) it's in Trump's political interest to attack Cruz since he trails him in Iowa. It's the 2008 Republican presidential nominee who, oh by the way, went through a very real back and forth over his own eligibility to run back then.

McCain shivving Cruz won't drastically damage the Texas senator's strength in the race. For some, it will affirm that Cruz is the anti-establishment force they love. But, McCain's comment shows how the establishment can influence the race — by using the platform senators (and others) have to kill or boost stories.

Expect more of this. And the establishment will relish every minute of it.

Spoiler:

He is the most hated man in Washington, and he isn’t riveting record crowds like Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are out on the campaign trail. But Ted Cruz is running one of the best presidential campaigns of 2016.

After spending what will likely amount to the most money and most time in Iowa by any GOP candidate, Cruz is now the front-runner for the Iowa caucuses on Feb. 1. The Texas senator has proven his hunger to Iowa Republicans with late-night stops and an effort to visit to all 99 counties, with 28 stops this week alone.

Throughout, Cruz has made a few mistakes — like making a Joe Biden joke days after the vice president’s son died of cancer — but he has otherwise exhibited impressive discipline as a candidate.
He has used humor on Twitter and flagrant flattery to deflect provocations from the press to criticize Trump. He appreciates the value of timing; though he started wooing Iowa conservatives just months after being elected senator in 2012, he kept his now years-old presidential campaign quiet until March.

During several early debates, Cruz — a former debate champion — held back, aware that peaking too soon is one of the easiest ways to lose. And while Cruz was working to win the most critical endorsements of social conservative leaders in Iowa, which he has now received, he was also building formidable operations in the southern states that vote March 1, when more delegates will be awarded than on any other day.

A win in the first contest, previously written off as less significant than the second one, in New Hampshire, now appears likely to create powerful momentum for Cruz. Should he head straight to South Carolina to plant the first flag before its Feb. 20 vote, a nightmare scenario could result for establishment Republicans, who could end up splitting the vote in New Hampshire on Feb. 9 and serving as spoilers for a Trump victory in the state. To date, none of them have landed on a potent line of attack to stop Cruz in Iowa. Conceding the Hawkeye State could mean conceding the Palmetto State, too: in 2012, 65 percent of South Carolina GOP primary voters identified themselves as born-again or evangelical Christians.

So far Cruz’s plan is working, though history may prove it laughably futile. That’s because the senator doesn’t intend to win over the electorate, he plans to try to change it — like Barack Obama did. “Obama ran a masterful campaign,” he has said. “It was a grassroots guerilla campaign, encircled the Hillary campaign before they knew what hit them.”

The path to victory, Cruz insists, is through conservatives — not swing voters in the “mushy middle.” He thinks there are millions of white evangelical Republicans he can inspire who sat out elections in 2012 and 2008, when the GOP nominated moderate Republicans. He maintains “if the body of Christ rises up as one and votes our values we can turn this country around.” (The number crunchers disagree: voters who stayed home did so in red or blue states, not in battleground states, therefore they weren’t decisive in GOP losses.)

To meet his goal, Cruz is dispatching a data analytics firm to reach millions of potential supporters, through data gathered mostly from Facebook without their knowledge. Through “psychographic targeting,” his team is trying to locate possible Cruz voters based on five personality traits: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism.

Perhaps recognizing he may not be the best messenger, Cruz intends to be the best marketer. After all, winning the presidency is just a numbers game. The candidate with the most numbers wins, and Cruz thinks he knows how to find them.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
In my experience, Most evangelical christians tend to not vote much at all. God, Are elections supposed to fill you with dread more than hope?
Cause 2016 looks like we are all screwed no matter what.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
In my experience, Most evangelical christians tend to not vote much at all. God, Are elections supposed to fill you with dread more than hope?
Cause 2016 looks like we are all screwed no matter what.

FoWPlayerDeathOfUS.TDs wrote:
Ah, incumbents signing laws to make it easier to be reelected! How unusual!

Cruz has convinced me of three things in his short career:

1. He's a slippery, unlikable, untrustworthy jackanapes that I can never support.

2. He's going to adopt and forcefully advocate for policy ideas I believe in.

3. He is running the smartest campaign in the Republican presidential race. (Damn it.)

He has a path too.

Even with his national polling lead, Donald Trump still seems to be hitting a ceiling in the race. That means one of the other candidates will likely beat him by consolidating support among anti-Trump Republicans. The best bets look like Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz. But is it really fair to equate the two? Cruz has already surged ahead of Donald Trump in Iowa. He is polling second in New Hampshire and South Carolina (though far behind Trump, admittedly). Cruz is better positioned than Rubio in the polls and is consistently getting the better of Rubio each time they jockey for position.

Let's take each part in turn.

First Trump, who has been bleeding support over to Cruz in Iowa. You can see why in Cruz's ad "Invasion" which features mostly white and black characters in office wear hopping over a fence and desperately crossing a river in the desert. It asks the viewer to imagine the politics of immigration if it were bankers and lawyers crossing the border. Cruz narrates: "Or if a bunch of people with journalism degrees were coming over and driving down the wages in the press, then we would see stories about the economic calamity that is befalling our nation." It's a funny ad in which Cruz promises a "wall that works." It's able to invoke the chaos of America's immigration problem, without the kind of images California's governor Pete Wilson got called a demagogue for using. Like the candidate, the message is populist, clever, and perfectly anti-Washington. It doesn't make you feel slimy for agreeing with it.

Next up, Rubio, who has engaged Cruz by trying to enhance his own supposed advantage on foreign policy. Of the USA Freedom Act, Rubio recently said, "If ISIS had lobbyists in Washington, they would have spent millions to support the anti-intelligence law that was just passed with the help of some Republicans now running for president." One of those Republicans is Ted Cruz. It's a wild attack to suggest a law Congress passed is what ISIS wants. Because it was supported by some of his closest Senate colleagues, like Utah's Mike Lee, it also does collateral damage.

Cruz has been direct and effective in countering Rubio here. In the past I've suggested that candidates facing Hillary Clinton should talk about her leading role in advocating military intervention in Libya. Ted Cruz is already linking Marco Rubio to the disaster there — and to Democrats. "Senator Rubio enthusiastically supported Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in toppling the government in Libya," Cruz said, "The result was Libya became a lawless war zone governed by radical Islamic terrorists and that has profoundly endangered our national security."

Cruz's lines on these issues, like many of his lines, feel practiced. But practice makes perfect. And the more-in-sorrow tone of Cruz's criticism of Rubio is right on pitch, "We shouldn't engage in the kind of military adventurism that has characterized Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and sadly, far too many establishment Republicans including Marco Rubio."

Cruz spokeswoman Alice Stewart was even more acid:

So Rubio's foreign policy and national security strategy is to invade Middle Eastern countries, create power vacuums for terrorist organizations, allow their people to come to America unvetted, give them legal status and citizenship, then impose a massive surveillance state to monitor the problem," [The Guardian]

That's a devastating line of attack in the GOP primary.

And it has the virtue of being utterly true. Rubio is a candidate who embodies a Washington consensus that believes U.S. leaders, by virtue of their merit and good intentions, can positively reshape the body politic of just about any nation if we just ship enough firepower into moderate-enough rebels. At the same time this consensus holds that securing the border of our own country is a hopeless and immoral effort. Cruz is willing to call out Rubio in precisely these terms. It's glorious.

Until you remember that you are an irredeemable Cruz-hater. Like me.

FoWPlayerDeathOfUS.TDs wrote:
Ah, incumbents signing laws to make it easier to be reelected! How unusual!

 LordofHats wrote:

FoWPlayerDeathOfUS.TDs wrote:
Ah, incumbents signing laws to make it easier to be reelected! How unusual!

And by the party that lambasted someone for saying "we won't know what's in the bill till we pass it"

Republicans added over 40 pages of new stuff to the bill, didn’t hold a single hearing, didn’t solicit any input from the public at all, and told their caucus members that there was nothing to worry about and that they should feel totally comfortable voting for it without reading the extra 41 pages of stuff.

 Ouze wrote:
It's like a perfect circle made of poop.

 Ouze wrote:
There is something deeply satisfying about remembering how bitterly Republicans complained about how the Democrats used budget reconciliation to get the ACA to the president's desk when the current focus of the thread is that Republicans have used budget reconciliation to get a repeal of the ACA to the president's desk. It's like a perfect circle made of poop.

 agnosto wrote:
And years later, millions of Americans have health care that didn't before. Not perfect but something is better than nothing.

I always thought it was funny that they added a bunch of stuff that the republicans put in a bill during Clinton's presidency when they thought he was going to try for single-payer then turned around and said the entire ACA was poo. Even funnier is that some of the stuff that they say they hate the most started as a republican idea. Kind of like common core, they all say that they hate it but they started it and pushed it up until someone with a D next to their name agreed with them.