This is what happens when you let Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) influence you. Remember the golf game he had with popular vote loser Donald Trump in which he apparently convinced Trump that just a few more goodies to the Freedom Caucus would grease the skids for Trumpcare's rebirth? It was totally going to happen this week, sources said. They'd get everybody on board and take care of it before leaving for two weeks of recess. Yeah, that's not happening.
Conservatives outside of Congress said Wednesday that efforts to pass a health-care reform bill in the House had foundered again, after a series of meetings on the Hill produced legislation that the hard-line House Freedom Caucus could not support.
“It was very close a couple of days ago, but it looks like things have gone in a bad direction,” said Heritage Action for America president Michael Needham on a Wednesday morning call with reporters. Needham placed the blame squarely at the feet of moderates: “It’s kind of stunning that in 24 hours, instead of building support for good policy, they’ve kind of abandoned it.” […]
Needham’s remarks on Wednesday came after a two-hour meeting the night before involving Pence, leaders of the conservative Freedom Caucus and moderate Tuesday Group, key committee chairmen and other players broke without a clear resolution — or even text of a potential proposal for the various factions to review.
“There were no agreements tonight, and no agreements in principle, and certainly no agreements in terms of a foundation,” said Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), the Freedom Caucus chairman.
The White House, however, is promising that they'll dig that fucker back up again: Legislative Affairs Director Marc Short said "he's been encouraged that members who were not talking directly with one another are now doing so: 'We feel like that is progress.'" They're going to have to do a much better job on the negotiating and deal-making front, however, because this was just amateurish: "The White House's latest last-ditch effort to save the GOP’s Obamacare replacement bill hit a brick wall Tuesday night, as conservative and moderate Republicans met and realized they had two very different understandings of the changes sought by top Trump officials."
Apparently they didn't think either group would talk to the other, or that their double-dealing would ever be exposed. The sheer incompetence in this is really hard to overstate. From this double-dealing to not understanding how Congress works, this is a circus. Fellow Republicans are getting really pissed that the actual committees that are supposed to be crafting the legislation are being completely bypassed. "Many of us on the committees have spent years on these policies, and to just see it kind of being pulled away and put behind the scenes potentially to me is not the wisest course to take," says one, Rep. Tom Reed (R-NY) who serves on Ways and Means.
There's also the bizarre timing of this—they were actually raising the possibility that it would hit the floor this week, days before members leave for two weeks at home, where any who are brave enough to go out in public are going to be stormed by angry constituents who hated Trumpcare and will be even angrier over how much worse Zombie Trumpcare is. Knowing that Trumpcare was polling at 17 percent. Knowing that Trump is polling well below 40 percent approval. That they were actually talking about forcing Republicans to vote on this again was just insane.
But they're accomplishing something by keeping this monster on life support—creating enough confusion and chaos to scare insurers away from Obamacare for the 2018 plan year. It might be shitty governing and worse party-building, but it is an effective way to sabotage the law.