Yeah, it's grim.
One of
Eric Cantor's jobs between now and November was to fashion some sort of replacement plan for Obamacare. That whole thing just got a lot more chaotic. But because of Cantor's defeat, repeal is going to have some more life breathed into it, at least among House Republicans.
Cantor’s loss could also dramatically alter the Republican legislative agenda for the next five months. Cantor had been scrambling to craft a GOP health care bill to replace Obamacare—trying to piece together plans from wide corners of the party that could win support from a majority of Republicans. GOP leadership aides were tentatively planning for a series of health care related votes following the July 4th recess.
If a number of Republican Study Committee members hop into the race, it could raise the prominence of their health care alternative. [Rep. Steve] Scalise (R-LA) launched a push just last month to pressure Cantor to schedule a vote on that bill.
Scalise's
"plan" is not so much a plan as a mishmash of far-right Republican talking points. But if Scalise does shoehorn his way into leadership—he's
gunning for the majority whip job—that skunk of a proposal could make it to the floor.
In case you were wondering, David Brat is about as good on healthcare reform as he is the minimum wage. Consider this gem from the would-be Obamacare repealer: "We need to also scrap employer-based health insurance, and give those incentives to individuals to carry their own portable health insurance," he said of health care, adding that "If we did that, the issue of pre-existing conditions largely goes away." How does the issue of pre-existing conditions exactly go away? Magically, apparently.
