Congress Prepairs to Repeal and Replace Obamacare Schadenfreude

Nancy Pelosi’s one Obamacare regret? Relying too much on other Democrats for messaging. Well, that's what you get for relying on Democrats at all. Dem senator: Chances of keeping ObamaCare are “very good” For the short run, probably, for the long run, probably not. Keep deceiving yourself Markley. You have one ally on the Republican side, John Kasich: A Republican governor is fighting for Obamacare. Ohio has become addicted to expanded Medicaid:

“Our hospitals needed Medicaid expansion,” Kasich insisted, repeating an Ohio Hospital Association talking point that has never been supported by the revenue and expenses Ohio’s nonprofit hospitals report to the IRS.

According to hospital lobbyists, every state’s hospitals need billions in new federal deficit spending. But a 2015 analysis by credit rating agency Moody’s found that hospitals in states that expanded Medicaid “did not outperform hospitals in non-expansion states,” despite shifting more of their indigent care costs to taxpayers.

The Atlantic asks What Will Trump's Health-Care Replacement Be? You know, technically speaking, the President doesn't write or pass laws. Even Trumps knows better than the Atlantic:  Trump to Republicans: Act swiftly to replace Obamacare.

Donald Trump contradicts Paul Ryan on ObamaCare repeal

Contradicting Republican leaders, President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday called for a repeal of ObamaCare “probably sometime next week” — even without a replacement immediately in place.

“It won’t be repeal and then two years later go in with another plan,” he told the New York Times. “The replace will be very quickly or simultaneously, very shortly thereafter.

 Congress OKs budget, in 1st step toward ObamaCare repeal

Taking a first step toward repealing and replacing ObamaCare, Congress on Friday approved a budget framework that would smooth the way for an eventual vote on dismantling the outgoing president’s signature health care law.

The House voted 227-198 for the measure, following a vote in the Senate earlier this week.

The framework does not directly deal with repealing the Affordable Care Act. Rather, it would prevent Democrats from using a Senate filibuster to derail a future bill nixing and replacing the health law. That's critical because it takes 60 votes to end filibusters, and Republicans have only a 52-48 Senate majority.

The budget, which does not need the president's signature, was considered a critical step for majority Republicans in their bid to work with the incoming Donald Trump administration in fulfilling vows to replace the health care law.

Interestingly, Rand Paul voted against the budget resolution, so it wasn’t quite a party-line vote. Dianne Feinstein didn’t cast a vote at all and Republicans had 51 without Paul, but Paul wants the replacement ready at the same time as repeal. Freedom Caucus Won’t Block Obamacare Repeal Plan

The de­cision is a vic­tory for House Re­pub­lic­an lead­ers, who have been fa­cing head­winds in their at­tempt to sell the first step of Obama­care re­peal to their con­fer­ence. It is also not clear that the Free­dom Caucus was suc­cess­ful in for­cing lead­er­ship to re­veal de­tails of their Obama­care re­place­ment plan. Mem­bers were also as­suaged by com­ments from lead­er­ship that a budget later this year will at­tempt to bal­ance in 10 years and that an Obama­care re­place­ment will come soon after Con­gress passes their re­peal.

House budget vote represents ‘the beginning of the end of Obamacare’

On a largely party line vote, the GOP controlled House passed a budget which will allow the party to repeal Obamacare using reconciliation, a process reserved for budget related items which cannot be filibustered in the Senate. The budget bill passed 227-198, with all Democrats and 9 Republicans voting against it. At least

House Speaker Paul Ryan took to the House floor and said, “My colleagues, this experiment has failed. This law is collapsing while we speak. We have to step in before things get worse. This is nothing short of a rescue mission. By taking this step today, we are doing what is right.”

Senate approves Jan. 27 deadline to draft Obamacare repeal legislation

Senate Republicans on Thursday imposed a deadline on their plans to dismantle President Obama’s health care law, saying Americans are demanding relief from rising prices and dwindling choices even if the path toward a replacement is politically perilous.

A budget resolution instructing GOP-led committees to draft repeal legislation by Jan. 27 was approved, 51-48, in the wee hours after Republicans who hold a narrow Senate majority fended off attempts to derail the effort.