While I do not believe in conservative policies I understand that there are many in this country who do and as such I am willing to meet somewhere in the middle, preferably the left side of the middle where most Americans are based on the policies and social programs they want. Boehner understands that we really need healthcare reform. He also understands that politics aside, much in the Affordable Care Act came from the Republican leaning Heritage Foundation. In fact the mandate is something Republicans suggested and were fighting for(Gingrich, Romney, etc. were all supporters) .
Boehner is now preparing his crew for options. If the bill is overturned or the mandate removed he wants a plan to come up with a bill that includes all the parts people love. Of course for it to be paid for some things corporations (insurance companies & large businesses) wont like must be effected.
Unlike President Bush’s drug bill which was just added to the deficit, the Affordable Care Act actually reduces the deficit. As the article below shows, Boehner’s attempt at rational governing created a revolt with the Right Wing who simply wants the entire thing scrapped. He was forced to change his tune. A telling statement on one of the best features of the bill says it all.
Plus, the plan being debated in the Repeal listserv — as revealed in a POLITICO story Wednesday night — didn’t detail how Boehner planned to address popular provisions they’re looking to preserve; those decisions have not yet been made. The provisions include keeping children on their parents’ health care until 26, encouraging insurance companies to provide coverage to those with pre-existing conditions and keeping the so-called Medicare “donut hole” closed.
That didn’t stop the staffers and activists on the health care email list from getting pretty heated.
Avik Roy, a Forbes columnist and Manhattan Institute scholar, wrote to the email group that forcing insurance companies to cover folks with pre-existing conditions “would destroy the private insurance market.” Congressional Republicans also want to keep closed the Medicare “donut hole” — Washington-speak for a gap in Medicare’s prescription drug coverage that requires seniors to pay more out of pocket for medicine. Roy said that much-maligned gap in coverage — eventually closed in the Democrats’ law — has “actuarial importance in preventing wasteful drug spending.”
Their goal is not to find ways to protect human beings. Their goal is to simply preserve a private market that enriches a few by wealth transfer through premiums. Where is the morality?
TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK AFTER READING THE ARTICLE.
Right infighting over health care
By JAKE SHERMAN | 5/17/12 10:01 PM EDT
Thirty minutes.
That’s roughly the time it took for conservatives to jump all over Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and his leadership team after the GOP’s game plan for dealing with President Barack Obama’s health care law leaked to the media.
Their gripe? Republicans would try to replicate popular parts of Obama’s health care law if the Supreme Court overturns the law this summer.
Rather than sending out news releases or rushing to cable TV for a rant, conservatives blasted House Republican leadership on a private Google email group called The Repeal Coalition. The group is chock- full of think tank types, some Republican leadership staffers, health care policy staffers and conservative activists, according to sources in the group.
The behind-the-scenes fight among Republicans richly illustrates why House GOP leadership is so cautious, sensitive and calculating when it comes to dealing with the conservative right. POLITICO obtained the email chain, the contents of which show that health care reform remains just as emotional an issue as ever.
Wesley Denton, an aide to Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), questioned whether the “GOP now against full repeal?”
“Should we change the name of this [listserv] to ‘partialrepealcoalition’ or ‘someofobamacareisprettygood’?” Denton wrote to the group.
(Also on POLITICO: GOP preps plan for health law ruling)
Brian Worth, a GOP leadership staffer responsible for coordinating with outside groups, shot back that “the House has already passed a full repeal bill.”
“Has the Senate passed that bill yet?” Worth asked Denton, in the email chain.
Russ Vought, a former House Republican staffer who is now at Heritage Action for America, bluntly said, “that has absolutely nothing to do with it.” The “House GOP is going to cave after winning an election on full repeal … and before winning the next election to finish the job.”
“Unreal,” he said.
The common Washington narrative holds that Boehner, Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) have trouble wrangling the members in the House Republican Conference. That might be true — at times.
But groups on the outside are also problematic. When a certain issue gets hot, email groups like The Repeal Coalition pop up, causing spirited debate among staffers and activists. It also gins up opposition to — or support for — leadership, creating a sense of group-think that’s often hard for leadership to contain to control.
For example, during the debt ceiling debate last summer, a group of conservatives gathered on a Cut, Cap and Balance email chain — taking its name from a plan pushed by conservatives like Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz and Republican Study Committee Chairman Jim Jordan of Ohio.
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