After a meeting with the guy who will be doing popular vote loser Donald Trump's work in the White House, Mike Pence, Senate Republicans are no closer to having a plan for their Obamacare repeal plan. They know they want to do it. They know they want to do it first thing and have it on Pence's Trump's desk on day one, but how—and mostly importantly when—the law is unraveled is a bone of major contention, and the Pence meeting didn't provide any help.
“The view on that probably is in a constant state of evolution, based on who you talk to,” said Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 3 GOP leader. “The question is: What’s that duration? Structurally, it’s at this point an open question. We’re hoping to get some direction.” […]
The length of the transition is pitting hard-line conservatives such as Sen. Ted Cruz and members of the House Freedom Caucus, who favor a relatively speedy replacement, against Senate leaders who are pushing the three-year option.
“It took six years to get into this mess; it’s going to take us a while to get out of it,” said Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas). “One thing I know for sure is we can’t fail to deliver on the promise to repeal Obamacare.” […]
“The sooner we can get rid of it, the better,” said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the outgoing leader of the Freedom Caucus.
“The Democrats passed it in 14 months,” added Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.). “I’m not going to vote for anything that’s longer than two years.”
It's almost as if they don't understand how all this stuff works. But the Freedom Caucus maniacs have never really put a whole lot of effort into the making of stuff, like laws, just the blowing up part. They haven't bothered to figure out the ramifications of the blowing up part—destruction is their end, and the sooner the better. But for slightly more sophisticated lawmakers who aren't in gerrymandered safe districts, instant gratification isn't enough—they have to think about the next election, of course. And they have to realize just how much damage they'll be doing by taking insurance away from 20+ million people. If they go for a three-year transition, they'll be right back in the middle of a presidential election. But two years is probably not long enough to have any kind of replacement plan ready.
Speaking of replacement, it's pretty telling that they can't even get on the same page on how to repeal the damn law. There's not a chance in hell they can actually make a replacement law that they can get all Republicans on board with. So incoming Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer is piling on: "They have nothing to put in its place. […] And believe me, just repealing Obamacare, even though they have nothing to put in its place, and saying they’ll do it sometime down the road, will cause huge calamity, from one end of America to the other. They don’t know what to do. They’re like the dog that caught the bus." So this rush to repeal? "To our Republican friends across the aisle," he said, "bring it on."