RYANCARE, INSTEAD OF ONE STEP FORWARD, IS TWO STEPS BACK…

Ok look, now I know I may not be as smart as a member of Congress, either in the Senate or the House, but I seriously don’t understand why it is that the Republicans seem so determined to make this entire “repeal and replace” process regarding Obamacare so difficult.  I saw Paul Ryan on Fox News last night and all he kept repeating, nearly ad nauseam, was how the Republicans are keeping their promise to “repeal and replace.”  I can only assume that he thinks we’re all too stupid to recognize that what’s currently being offered is nothing more than smoke and mirrors.  And I’ll tell you right now, if what we’re seeing now becomes a reality, then come 2018 Ryan will no longer be Speaker, McConnell will no longer be leading the Senate and the Republican Party will be returned to the status which they seem to be much better suited.  Now either these guys think we’re bluffing or they simply don’t care, but either way the American people will have their say.

And so here we are, seven long years later, years spent listening to these same Republicans continue to make the same promise to “repeal and replace” Obamacare.  And after years of waiting for them to come up with what we all hoped would be viable plan to do just that, what do we get?  We get a bill from House Speaker Paul Ryan which, for all practical purposes, is even worse than Obamacare!  Seriously?  And when you stop to think about it, it’s a rather impressive feat because, in their pursuit of a lower score from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), Democrats made Obamacare just about as bad as they thought they could get away with while still calling it “universal” health care.  While many other analyses are focused on how Ryan’s American Health Care Act will make life worse for certain lower income Americans compared to Obamacare, pointing out the similarities is more important for understanding its politics.

Under Ryancare, most people will get coverage through their employer, just like with Obamacare.  And in both cases, many of the poor will get coverage through Medicaid. And with both plans, lower/middle income people without employer coverage will be encouraged to use tax credits to help buy ‘regulated’ private insurance.  Neither Obamacare nor Ryancare has any real price control measures to deal with our dramatically out-of-control healthcare prices.  Both plans leave groups of Americans without insurance they consider to be ‘affordable’.  Finally, both are heavily “financed” by a Cadillac tax on expensive employer-provided insurance that is delayed for a decade, resulting in no one expecting the tax to ever go into effect.  There are four major areas where Ryancare does differ from Obamacare, but even here, most of Ryancare’s provisions are only a bad funhouse mirror version of very similar Obamacare policies.  They are:

1) Medicaid:   The most important difference is that Ryancare will change how the Medicaid expansion works and is funded starting in 2020 by freezing enrollment and creating a per capita cap, which places funding limits on each person. Of course, that might never happen. If the GOP doesn’t feel comfortable implementing these changes now, I don’t know how they think it will be easier in the middle of a presidential election.   This Medicaid cut will cause about 4-6 million people to lose Medicaid coverage, according to S&P (which I need to cite since there is no CBO score).

2) Tax credits:  The second most important difference is that Ryancare will, in 2020, replace Obamacare’s age/regional based, means-tested, refundable tax credits to buy private insurance with age-based, sort-of-means-tested, refundable tax credits to buy private insurance.   On the plus side, the more modest means-testing design in Ryancare means the tax credits should be slightly easier for the government to administer, will make insurance more affordable for some Americans who currently make too much to qualify for Obamacare credits, and somewhat addresses the issue that means-testing created a big effective marginal tax on lower income people.   The issue is that Ryancare’s “fixes” the problem created by Obamacare only providing lower income Americans enough tax credits to make insurance affordable by basically making tax credits equally insufficient for everyone. And since they aren’t pegged to the cost of health care, the Ryancare tax credits could become less sufficient every year.

3) Individual mandate replaced by late enrollment penalty:  Ryancare gets rid of the deeply unpopular individual mandate. In its place, it imposes a late enrollment penalty that’s supposed to nudge people to buy private insurance in a timely manner. If you fail to buy coverage for awhile, you will need to pay 30 percent more when you do buy insurance.   Both systems suffer from the basic flaw that they don’t make insurance truly affordable for everyone but punish you if for some reason you feel you can’t make your premiums. Obamacare has hardship exemptions for the mandate, though.

4) Taxes repealed:  Finally, Ryancare repeals almost all of the other Obamacare taxes, meaning it probably won’t pay for itself. Repealing the Obamacare taxes on the rich will likely be viewed by many as being nothing more than just a big giveaway to the rich.

Ryancare is not a change of structure from Obamacare. It’s a change of scope.  The big similarities, and the fact that even the differences are more a matter of size than radical policy redesign, completely undermines the GOP’s ideological and political position. It’s not based around a coherent theory for what is wrong with health care, nor does it offer any big new ideas to fix our problems.  By comparison, there are intellectual theories behind how plans like the old Wyden-Bennett bill or Medicare-for-All could improve conditions with big system-wide changes.  There is no principle or story behind Ryancare to explain how, even in theory, it could make things better. There is no reason to even hope it could make things cheaper or coverage better. There is no way to look at what is really nothing other than a worse version of Obamacare and not conclude that it would have an impact similar to Obamacare.

So now Republicans are left trying to explain why they kept claiming Obamacare was such a terrible existential threat that it can be completely fixed by cutting rich people’s taxes and making it less generous to some people in need.  As a result, the ideological Republicans aren’t happy, the more pragmatic Republicans who would need to implement it aren’t happy, the non-partisan groups aren’t happy, and even the political hacks don’t know how to sell it.  The Republican PR team is honestly left pointing to the fact that Ryancare has fewer pages as being proof that it’s better.   Selling Obamacare was almost impossible for Democrats; selling what is really nothing more than an even worse version of Obamacare should prove even more difficult for the Republicans.  Frankly, I don’t understand why it is that the Republicans seem so determined to make things so much more difficult than they need to be.  A lot more difficult! 

And I’ll tell ya something else, the Republicans are going to have one chance, just one, to get this thing right, and while Ryan may think he’s being pretty clever, the truth is, he’s not fooling anybody.  Personally, I think Ryan, like most politicians, is pretty lazy, hence is recent and lame justification regarding the eight day work schedule planned for the House next month.  And while Ryan may think he’s pretty cute, I think most folks realize that he’s doing little more than trying to appease his big donors in such a way that will allow him to claim he tried his best to keep things as close as possible to the original Obamacare.  At least he can say, "See I tried to keep it as the establishment wants, but that's just not going to fly".  His big donors can't say he didn't try.  I think Ryan has known all along that this rendition was never going to pass the smell test.  So now let’s move forward with a serious attempt to “repeal and replace” and leave this attempt behind.

If the GOP insists upon pushing millions of poorer Republican voters, who rely on Medicaid so they can get medical treatment and survive, off of Medicaid, the GOP will surely lose its present majority position in government and the mantra of “Make America Great Again” will be relegated to bumpersticker status in much the same way that “Hope and Change” was.  It's called cutting off your nose to spite your face, I think.  Alternatively, we can replace Obamacare and move on to accomplish a hundred other important tasks that need to occur in order for “Make America Great Again” to become a reality.  The stars will never again align like this in our lifetime.  If Republicans blow this opportunity the “Make America Great Again” is dead and the Democrats, like the Phoenix, will rise again.  And America will go into steep socio-economic and moral decline while the borders are thrown wide open and our civilization declines.

Those who now seem to be so determined in their effort to shove through what is nothing more than a soup sandwich do so not only at their own political peril, but it also places at risk the future of our country.  Because their continuing opposition to this new Americanism will most assuredly destroy this country just as quickly as the regressive left in this country will.  Republicans need to focus on getting the job done, and done right, while keeping the promises that were made so that we can then move on to trade, taxation, immigration, and a hundred other things that are now, after eight years of Barry “Almighty”, in urgent need of being addressed!  Come on people, it’s just not that freaking complicated.  And if a simple old soul like myself is able to recognize that fact then why is it that those in positions of power seem to be so freaking mystified by the entire concept of doing what it is that they promised and in the way that they promised to do it! 

CAN’T SAY I’VE EVER BEEN A FAN OF PAUL RYAN…

I can’t say that I’ve ever been a fan of ‘RINO’ Paul Ryan, to the point where during his last campaign for re-election I went so far as to donate to his primary opponent.  But to no avail.  Because the imbeciles that comprise his congressional district saw fit to re-elect him, choosing to ignore completely the fact that he is no conservative.  And apparently I am far from being alone in holding a rather low opinion of Speaker Ryan.  Betsy McCaughey, a former Donald Trump economic advisor, recently said that Ryan should step down if he cannot pass an Obamacare repeal package.  Speaking to radio host John Castimatidis on AM 970 in New York, McCaughey said, “If he can’t do his job as Speaker, to hold these Republicans together and get a repeal and replace bill through, somebody else should be Speaker.”

Ms. McCaughey, the former lieutenant governor of New York, said that “Obamacare is in a death spiral,” and she accused Speaker Ryan of pushing for what amounts to “Obamacare-lite.”  Gee, I sure can’t argue with that.  I’d say Ms. McCaughey has hit the nail right on the proverbial head.  McCaughey is not the first Republican to oppose the Ryan plan to replace Obamacare.  House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-NC) said that the Ryan plan’s refundable tax credits could amount to a new “entitlement program.”  Congressman Pete Sessions (R-TX) has said that taxing expensive employer-sponsored health insurance plans creates a new “Cadillac tax.”  And it was Ms. McCaughey who also made it quite clear that she doesn’t think that Ryan is in line with Trump’s agenda.

Ms. McCaughey said, “Ryan has attached things to his version of the replacement bill that are very unpopular. He’s got to get on board with Donald Trump, because Donald Trump’s program is popular.”  And she argued that limiting the tax deductibility of health coverage raise taxes on half of America.  She said, “That’s like stabbing in the back the rust belt union workers who made Donald trump’s amazing victory possible.”  Sometimes I wonder if President Trump hasn’t got just as many enemies within his own party as he seems to have among the Democrats.  Personally, I’m of the opinion that the Republican leadership teams from both Houses of Congress should be summoned to the White House and given an ultimatum, either they do their job or he will go over their head, directly to the people! 

But seriously folks, despite all the promises that we’ve heard going all the way back to 2010, I have always questioned the commitment of the Republicans when it comes to the repealing of Obamacare. They only wanted to be seen as posturing to try to repeal it.  They all assumed that Hitlery would be in office, and that Obamacare would become a permanent fixture just like Social Security, and that nobody would ever dare even mention its repeal after that.  They didn't even have a plan to repeal it.  They lied, it’s just that simple.  The Republican Party has been infested by RINOs, whose job it is to absorb the backlash against the left's charge towards globalism and Marxism.  People vote for the perceived opposition, only to watch the perceived opposition barely fall short, time and time again.

Now they are struggling with how to help enable the left without being too obvious to their constituents.  Some like Ryan have just given up and are now all-out lefties.  Frankly I’m not sure if Ryan was ever opposed to Obamacare.  He only opposes the left for show and then goes back to his constituents and tells them how hard he has worked to stop the left, and although he fell short, with more votes and money, he will get back up and keep swinging.  That's how these RINOs roll. They are not opposition to the Democrats, but rather are there to prevent real opposition from forming.  They absorb all of the votes of people protesting the move towards globalism and socialism, then pretend to oppose it and lose.  Now that Trump is around, the contrast makes it clear they are not legitimate opposition.

The thing is, I don’t think the Republican ever really wanted to repeal Obamacare.  I think they were content to put up just enough of a fight to make it appear as if they were against it, and to then just let it ride until we the American people simply accepted it.  Otherwise, I’m thinking, they would have had an alternative plan long ago just waiting for the opportunity to implement it.   But nope, they're too spineless to even want to try to undo ANY of the Democrat’s crappy ideas.  Every Republican since the 2010 midterms has run on repealing Obamacare and they're still dragging their feet now that they have total control of Congress and the White House.  We long ago needed a serious, and very thorough, house cleaning, especially in the Senate.  McConnell is a liar, he also has campaigned on repealing Obamacare.

It’s becoming more and more apparent that Paul Ryan is simply incapable of being an effective Speaker. Less so than even Boehner was.  And Boehner was a nothing less than a complete disaster and on so many levels.  I think the time has now come for Ryan to finally acknowledge his lack of leadership ability, and for the sake of the American people simply step down.  Since first assuming his current position it has become glaringly obvious, on nearly a daily basis, that he simply does not possess the necessary skillset that would help his fellow citizens who are in desperate need of health insurance at a reasonable cost, for these families are losing their ability to sustain healthy lives.  It is a crime that Paul Ryan refuses to admit his limitations while Americans are suffering the consequences.

Unfortunately, what President Trump will likely be forced into doing is to make clear to the American people that Ryan and McConnell would rather serve as speedbumps on the way to ‘Making America Great Again’ than doing what is necessary to actually accomplish that goal.  They are just as guilty of dragging their feet as are the Democrats.  They should be given a reasonable timeline and if they fail to meet it he should bring the full weight of his office down upon them.  There needs to be an understanding when it comes to who it is that’s running the show.  As for RINOs like McCain and Graham, they should be stripped of any chairmanships or positions of power they currently have.  They are embarrassments.  Examples must be made to convince others to think twice before choosing to obstruct.

President Trump is going have to put the hammer down and soon.  And he must be very cognizant of the fact that the RINOs in Congress will be just as much of an obstacle to his agenda as the Democrats will most assuredly be, and are just as determined in their effort to make sure he fails.  And while, I suppose, there is little pressure he can apply to the Democrats, those Republicans who continue to be obstacles should be leaned on, and leaned on hard.  He must make them understand that they are either with him or against him, and if against him he will do everything in his power to bring an end to their political careers.   And he must continually make it known that there is a select few Republicans who would rather side with the Democrats than do what’s necessary to “Make America Great Again.”

PAUL ‘BOEHNER’, OUR ‘NEW AND IMPROVED’ SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE…

Have you ever noticed how it is that whenever something is presented to you as being “new and improved” it is rarely if ever actually new, and is almost never improved.  But what it ALWAYS is, is far more costly than was the original.  So it is too then, apparently, that this very same rule can also now be said to be applicable to our newest “Speaker of the House.”  Because it’s in looking at our ‘new’ Speaker that one is able to recognize that there is nothing new, and definitely nothing improved when it comes in how he conducts business, compared to the man he replaced. 

When he first assumed his new position as Speaker, Paul Ryan actually sounded like he was genuinely concerned about getting this country back on firm footing.  But somewhere between then and now he seems to have morphed into Paul ‘Boehner’.  Nothing proves that better than what he said of the recently passed $1.1 Trillion spending bill, saying that while it isn't everything Republicans wanted, it most certainly advances the party's principles "in the right direction."  And what was amazing was how he was able to make that statement with a straight face.

It was also our ‘new and improved’ Speaker who said, "We scored major policy wins for conservatives — for our country — in this bill."   And he went on to say, "We advanced our principles. Did we advance all of our principles as far as we want to go? No, because we’re in divided government. But we did advance them in the right direction."  He said it was important to get what was possible now, then fight for more later. "And I think we’ve set ourselves up for more success in 2016."  Fight for more later?  Wouldn’t that indicate that he had put up a fight this time?

And we’re told how conservatives, however few there may actually be in the House, didn't particularly like the massive amount of spending in the bill, the failure to halt Syrian refugee resettlement or the continued funding of Planned Parenthood. But as long as ‘Boehner’ had enough RINOs willing to join with Democrats to pass this Obama-nation, so he could ignore them.  So how fucked up is it that we can have a very sizeable Republican majority in Congress, a majority of whom can oppose a piece of legislation, and yet that legislation can still be passed?  How does that work?

Paul ‘Boehner’, in pointing out what he hysterically referred to as being just ‘some’ of the gains made, tried to paint this bill as being a good deal.  For instance, the bill permanently lifts the ban on oil exports.  He said, "That's something we’ve been trying to do for 40 years in this country."  He went on to say, "When America can export its oil, that means we can compete with OPEC. We can put OPEC out of the business of controlling the world’s oil markets."  And, he noted, that it’s something that also hurts Russian President Vlad Putin's ability to sell oil and gas to Europe.

And Paul ‘Boehner’ said, "We can become more independent. We can keep our prices low by having more control over the marketplace and create more jobs right here in America." He added, "It’s fantastic for our foreign policy. It's really good for American jobs. And it's something we're actually getting done that we haven’t been able to do for decades."  And then he went on to say, that this bill will also prevent the Internal Revenue Service from "trying to pull the stunts they pulled in the 2012 election," when it held up tax-exempt application from conservative groups.

Paul ‘Boehner’ went on to say, "The IRS allowed the Obama administration to turn them into a political weapon to infringe upon free speech and to intimidate conservative groups from exercising their free speech rights to participate in political speech."  And he added, "So, we have a rider in here that prohibits the IRS from putting out a regulation on this."  So I’m guessing this was what, an attempt to pacify us, to prevent conservatives from complaining too loudly?  No matter what this boob says, that fact is when you look at this bill it’s clear that conservatives got screwed. 

And what makes it even clearer that conservatives got screwed is the fact that Democrats in Congress are so happy.  I’m quite sure that they viewed the $1.1 Trillion omnibus spending bill they ‘negotiated’, and I use the term loosely, with the new Speaker as being an early Christmas gift as well as a significant victory for both themselves and for the White House.  And, needless to say, there has much celebrating by both the White House and congressional Democrats, after succeeding, and in a very visible way, to once again leave conservatives sucking hind tit.

Adam Jentleson, Minority Leader ‘Dingy Harry’ Reid’s dip-shit of a deputy chief of staff, wasted no time in taking to Twitter to do a little gloating.  He tweeted out, “In addition to nixing more than 150 GOP riders, the final agreement will secure major progressive policy successes.”  And the White house was also quick to release a statement Wednesday noting the lack of ideological policy directives, writing:  The Administration appreciates the bipartisan effort to provide full-year appropriations legislation for FY 2016 largely free of new unrelated ideological riders.

You see, it was those “unrelated ideological riders” which the administration referred to were many of those policies that were favored by conservatives and by the voters.  You know, those things that we thought we were going to get by providing to the Republicans their requested majority in the Senate and the largest majority that either party has had in the House since the 1920s.  So instead of getting any of things that were promised during the 2014 campaign, all we really got was, fucked!  And by the guys on our own team, which makes it all the more infuriating!

Democrats released a report detailing 150 conservative policies that were left out of the bill.  They included: a provision prohibiting funding for sanctuary cities that shelter illegal immigrants, a provision prohibiting tax dollars from going to defend the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrives (DACA) policy in a pending court case; A provision prohibiting funding for climate-focused studies and reports, a provision prohibiting funds to subsidize abortion services in connection with a plan offered under the Obamacare exchanges and a provision restricting the federal government from requiring licenses for Canada gun exports worth less than $500.

So I think we can now safely argue that not only do we have the best Democrat Majority Leader in the Senate we also, obviously have the same in the House. It is going to take a thorough house cleaning to remove all of those Democrats that seem to be embedded within in the Republican Party. And yet they wonder why it is that Donald Trump has such a large following.  But let's face it, the Democrats didn't really strip anything out of the bill. Paul ‘Boehner’ wanted much of the same things that ‘Dingy Harry’ Reid did, gave in faster than a hooker with a $100 bill in her pocket.

RYAN MAINTAINS THE SAME COURSE AS BOEHNER…

With the ascension of ‘RINO Paul’ Ryan to Speaker of the House, we heard much talk regarding his desire to start his tenure with a “clean slate”.  But sadly, it would appear that very little, if anything, has actually changed since Ryan assumed the helm there in the House.  Because according to estimates just published by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), we seem to be on pretty much the very same course that we were on when Boehner was in charge. 

You see, it’s according to the CBO that the federal government not has only managed to tax more, but spent more as well, and has even managed to run a bigger deficit in the first two months of fiscal 2016 than it did in the first two months of fiscal 2015.  Now for those who may be unaware of such things, the federal fiscal year begins on Oct. 1 and ends on Sept. 30.  So I’m curious, what exactly did Ryan mean when he was talking about starting with a clean slate?

As of the close of business on Friday, Dec. 4, the total federal debt was at $18,786,830,545,682.60.  That according to the U.S. Treasury.  The Census Bureau says that there were 117,748,000 households in the United States as of September. Thus, the $18,786,830,545,682.60 in federal debt equals approximately $159,551.16 for each household in the United States.  So this it would appear that nothing has been done in the effort to get this train back on the tracks.

And so it is, then, that I would like to once again take the opportunity to thank all of those members of the so-called ‘Freedom Caucus’ who thought it would be anywhere near a good idea to throw their support behind ‘RINO Ryan.’  It really has worked out quite well for us.  And yes, I’m being sarcastic in my praise of these frauds who were so casually able to once again throw the country under the bus when it could have all been so easily averted.  And yet we’re right where we were.