One day after opining that the Democrats were in a lose-lose situation with regard to what the Republicans in The House of Representatives have demagogically called the "American Health Care Act," I have to give the Republicans in The House a compliment, albeit a back-handed one concomitant with a sigh of relief. I didn't realize this yesterday, but in a move to put the burden for repealing and replacing "Obamacare" on the Republican controlled Senate, Republicans in The House designated their bill "budgetary" by bringing the bill to the floor through their budget and finance committee. The implication of that designation is that The Senate Republicans can pass it with just a majority vote if they desire to do so. But that designation also means that The Senate can rework the bill--amend it, change it or scrap it altogether and replace it--and then send it back to The House. The process as a whole is known as reconciliation. If the Republicans in The House had just sent the bill over to The Senate in the regular course of business, it would have been subject to filibuster...in effect a veto by the minority. In that circumstance, senate Democrats would have to have bourn the risk of alienating some segment of the electorate by either filibustering to prevent the bill from ever being voted on in their body on the one hand. On the other hand, they could allow the Republicans to pass the bill with their 52-48 majority and face scorn from their base for not doing all they could to prevent what, to use Donald Trump's phraseology from his criticism of its predecessor, the ACA, will be "a disaster" if it passes: the horns of the dilemma I mentioned yesterday.
It is possible that the House Republicans rose to nobility by taking full responsibility for their own idea...possible. That's the back-handed compliment. House Republicans may have stood on principle for once rather than on partisan opportunism. More likely however, they just re-aimed their foot-shooting pistol at the chests of their Republican Senate colleagues. More likely, they just didn't want the bill to become law and this is all just a gambit to prevent it without taking the blame. By passing the bill they did--indubitably bad news for tens of millions of people who benefited from the ACA--they satisfied their base's demand to repeal and replace Obamacare. But the risk they would be taking if it ever became law is that those who now approve of Obamacare, a majority of voters these days, would then blame them for any losses--and there would be many if it passed--that they suffered in consequence of the Republicans' callousness toward their needs. It's a no lose strategy to send a bad bill that most Republican voters want to The Senate for revision so that they get the blame no matter what; it's a little pusillanimous, but shrewd...just not so smart. Those are the two choices for how to view the Republicans in The House of Representatives now: shrewd or not so smart, and neither is particularly flattering, especially in light of the fact that they could have nailed the Democrats' hide to the barn door with this one.
The Republicans could have hung this thing around the collective neck of the Democrats so that they couldn't possibly get out of it unscathed, but they didn't. All they had to do was be straightforward and send a healthcare bill to The Senate as a plain piece of legislation, but they decided to lay the onus off on their Senate Republican colleagues instead. Good for them. Good for us too. The bull's eye was hanging on every Democrat in both houses of congress until the Republicans decided on this strategy. Now, they have to wear it themselves. Let's give 'em a hand, shall we?
Your friend,
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