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Conservatives in the House Freedom Caucus have shouldered the majority of the blame for the GOPs failure to repeal and replace the 2010 health care law, but moderates may beequally if not more responsible for the impasse.

There are arguably more hard no votes (members not likely to be convinced to move to yes) for the GOP leaderships plan among moderate Republicans than there are among the members of the Freedom Caucus.

The Freedom Caucus, however, is the easier scapegoat. Many of the caucuss members vote against leaderships plans more often than members from other factions of the GOP conference. But on this issue the moderates have more to lose.

Several Republicans described health care as a deeply personal issue in their explanation forwhy its so difficult to find conference agreement over a single plan.

If you buy that rationale, it helps explain why moderates arent jumping on board with leaderships bill like they have with measures to fund the government and raise the debt ceiling. They can logicallyexplain voting for compromise legislation that keeps the government open or the nation from defaulting on its debt.

But a similar rationale does not exist in the case of health care. Moderates are having trouble finding a logical reason to vote for a bill that would result in 24 million people not having health insurance.

Politically, repealing the 2010 health care law is a murky issue in many of the swing districts that moderate Republicans represent. If they vote for a repeal bill without a viable replacement to protect their constituents health care, they could face losing their 2018 re-election races.

Moderates who are supportive of the heath care bill understand the dilemma many of their colleagues face.

Theyre in states that are fairly liberal in their thought process to the role of government related to health insurance. Theyre in states that expanded Medicaid. Theyre just very different parts of the country, New York Rep. Chris Collins said last week.

Collins and his fellow New York Republicans are largelymoderates from a state that expanded Medicaid, but most of their concerns were allayed with the addition of a provision to exempt New York counties from contributions to the states Medicaid program. That addition, which Collins and Rep. John Faso helped secure, is one of the reasons Rep. Dan Donovan will likely never vote for the bill. The Collins-Faso provision does not apply to New York City, which Donovanrepresents.

Then theres New York Rep. John Katko, who promised his constituents he would not vote for a bill that repeals the health care bill unless there was an adequate replacement offered at the same time. He explained in a statement that the GOP plan does not provide adequate market-based options for insurance access nor does it address skyrocketing costs.

Two no votes among New Yorks nine GOP members is still a lot of division for astate that effectively secured an earmark to win its members support. In other delegations, the divide is even greater.

Four of five New Jersey Republicans announced they would vote no on the bill, positions which they appear to still hold. The states sole supporter of the bill is Rep. Tom MacArthur, co-chair of the moderate Tuesday Group. MacArthur has become the de facto negotiator for moderates that are willing to support the bill, whilethe groups longtime co-chair Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania remains unlikely to flip to yes.

Ill listen, but Im still a no, Dent saidlast week.

Among a list of concerns, Dent worried that continuing to shift the policy to the right will make the legislation unpassable in the Senate.

A lot of members here dont want to walk the plank for a bill that may not ever be brought up, may not ever be passed by the Senate, Dent said before the March 23 vote on the bill was postponed and then canceled.

Vice President Mike Pence and Trump administration officials madethe rounds last week among Republican caucuses, trying to whip up support for an idea they hoped would get conservatives on board without losing any moderate votes in the process. But the White House has not focused on what may happen to the bill in the Senate. Nor has it tried to win over many of the moderates who opposed the bill.

For example, those involved in negotiations frequently refer to MacArthur when speaking about talks with moderates, and sometimes the Tuesday Groups third co-chair Elise Stefanik, but never Dent. Chief Deputy Whip Patrick McHenry last week complimented MacArthur and Stefanik for being constructive. Asked if his omission of Dent meant that he was not being constructive, McHenry said only, Hes a colleague and friend of mine.

The negotiations with MacArthur and other moderates have focused onkeeping the yes votes on board, rather than working through the hodgepodge of concerns raised by the moderate no votes.

Instead, Pence targeted the bloc of no votes in Freedom Caucus with a pitch to allow states to seek a waiver to opt out of certain insurance regulations. The proposed waivers gave the Freedom Caucus hope that their concerns were finally being addressed, but then moderate yes votes started coming out against the idea.

That see-saw effect of negotiations shifting between Republicans on the far right and those in the center has gone onfor weeks. Most members remain optimistic theyll find the right balance, but if they dont, both sides will be to blame.

There will be some people in both groups who can never get to yes. And thats ok, MacArthur said. We can lose 20-plus votes and still have this carry.

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Analysis: Moderate Republicans Also to Blame for Health Care Impasse - Roll Call

Issa wouldnt protect us from a bill that raises premiums and causes 24 million to lose their insurance. new Save My Care ad attacking Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.)

Seven vulnerable Republican lawmakers are being targeted with $1 million in television spots by a liberal group backed by labor and progressive interests. The ads generally focus on the lawmakers apparent support for the American Health Care Act (AHCA), the failed House bill that was designed to replace the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare. The ad tries to capitalize on the interesting shift in public sentiment about Obamacare, suddenly more popular as it has comeunder legislative assault by the Trump administration.

Lets walk through the claims in the ad aimed at Issa. As attack ads go, this one is relatively careful about its language.

Congressman Issa promised to protect our health care. But when right-wing politicians tried to pass a disastrous health-care repeal bill that raises costs and cuts coverage, Issa wouldnt oppose them

Well get into the specifics about raising costs and cutting coverage below. But whether Issa wouldnt oppose the health-care replacement backed by President Trump is a matter of dispute. Save My Care pointed to a variety of news articles in which Issa indicated that changes made in the bill to attract votes had swung him toward a yes position. The right-leaning American Action Network even ran an ad thanking Issa even though a vote never took place.

But Calvin Moore, Issas communications director, said Issa never supported the bill: The congressman said that the bill wasnt in a form that I can approve of, then followed it up later on Fox News,telling the network that hes not prepared to vote for it as is right now. He said that Issa raised concerns that the bill wouldnt do enough for mental health, that it could leave many particularly those nearing retirement worse off, and that it didnt do enough to expand the risk pools to help curb some of the premium increases in Obamacare. Issa has proposed to open the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan (FEHBP) to all Americans.

Moore said the AHCAhad beenimproved, which is why Issa said he was leaning toward a yes, but it still had not won Issas support when it was pulled from a vote. He noted that after the bill was pulled, Issa issued a statementcalling the bill imperfect and said lawmakers need to get back to the drawing board.

In the end, Issa never pledged his support for the bill. One presumes thats why the ad says he did not oppose it, which is technically correct.

Issa wouldnt protect us from a bill that raises premiums and causes 24 million to lose their insurance

Weve criticized Democrats for seizing on a Congressional Budget Office report to claim that the bill would throw 24 million people off health insurance, take away health care for 24 million, or make 24 million lose their insurance. Here, the ad more conservatively says causes 24 million to lose their insurance. But it still could be confusing to ordinary people.

The CBO projected the impact of the AHCAcompared to existing law, and concluded that 24 million fewer people would have health insurance by 2026. As the CBO put it, the increase in the number of uninsured people relative to the number under current law would rise to 21 million in 2020 and then to 24 million in 2026. But that does not mean that all of those people involuntarily lost their insurance, as the ad suggests.

Initially, CBO said, many of the people who would be uninsured would choose not to have insurance because they had decided to obtain health insurance only to avoid a penalty under the ACAs individual mandate; the replacement bill eliminated the mandate. Others, such as elderly Americans, would not get insurance because the premiums would become higher for the elderly. But by 2026, 14 million of the uninsured people would lose insurance because of reductions in Medicaid enrollment after some states discontinue the Medicaid expansion under Obamacare. By 2026, 7 million fewer people also would have health insurance through their employers, CBO estimated.

As for raising premiums, again the CBO projected the impact versus current law. Premiums would initially be higher, but by 2026 premiums would be about 10 percent lower. (This does not mean that premiums would decline by 10 percent, just that they would increase at a lower rate than now projected.)

But the reasons for the decrease were not necessarily favorable for the proposed law. Thats because insurance premiums would spike for older people (20 to 25 percent higher for a 64-year-old) and many older people would drop out of the insurance markets. Then the pool of people getting insurance would be younger and healthier, leading to lower premiums than currently projected. The Brookings Institution, in an effort to come up with an apples-to-apples comparison, estimated that premiums under the proposed law would actually be 13 percent higher if adjusted for coverage and age.

Save My Care pointed to the Brookings study to justify the phrasing on raising premiums. Given that the premiums were projected to decrease mainly because older people were being priced out of the market, the language in the ad about premiums is acceptable.

wouldnt oppose a massive age tax on people over 50

Age tax is a phrase coined by AARP, the old-age interest group, to refer to the fact that proposed law would have changed the Obamacare requirement that older people could pay no more than three times a young person. Under the AHCA, the 3:1 ratio would have become 5:1. The result, as noted above, would have meant premiums would have dropped for younger Americans, relative to current law, but increased sharply for older Americans.

So its not really a tax, but an increase in health-care premiums.

and isnt fighting to protect coverage for preexisting conditions.

One of the most popular features of the ACA is its ban on insurance companies considering preexisting conditions. But conservative Republicans have pushed for changes that experts say could undermine that aspect of the law, such as allowing states to opt out of a requirement to provide certain benefits and charge the same price to everyone the same age. Save My Care says this line is based on the fact that Issa has not stated a position onthese proposals. The bill was amended just before Congress went on recess, but the amendment did not include the broader changes sought by conservatives.

Moore noted that the AHCA contained protections for preexisting conditions, as does Issas own health-care proposal. Preexisting conditions coverage is a part of his FEHBP-based bill which he said should be part of the conversation when we go back to the drawing board,' he said.

The ad is carefully worded, apparently in an effort to avoid becoming fact-checker bait. We noted our concern about the phrasing concerning the 24 million losing insurance, but even that did not push the envelope as much as many Democrats have in the past. The ad also leaps to a conclusion that Issa isnt fighting to provide coverage for preexisting conditions, when he has indeed been a supporter of that aspect of Obamacare.

Also missing, of course, is any notion that there are serious problems with the Affordable Care Act, including higher premiums and shrinking insurance options, that Congress at some point needs to tackle. Issa certainly has been a critic of Obamacare, but unlike the suggestionin this ad, he never fully embraced the House Republican bill either. Readers should always be wary of the claims made in 30-second attack ads, as the truth often is much more complex.

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Americas governors want Congress to end a longstanding ban on internet gambling at least, enough of them do to warrant the National Governors Association firing off a letter to U.S. Attorney General Jeff SessionsJeff SessionsIs Trumps presidency the patriarchys last gasp? Republicans of all people should shun federal online gambling ban Sessions: Congress will fund Trump's border wall MORE.

The regulation of gaming has historically been addressed by the states, the governors explained. While individual governors have different views about offering gaming in a variety of forms within their own states, we agree that decisions at the federal level that affect state regulatory authority should not be made unilaterally without state input.

In his opening remarks during his confirmation hearing, then-Senator Sessions assured his colleagues that if confirmed to lead the agency he would respect your Constitutional duties, your oversight role, and the particularly critically important separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches. Sessions also expressed disdain for agencies that set about their own agendasfocused only on what they feel are the goals of their agency (without giving) sufficient respect to the rule of law.

Yet, during that same confirmation hearing, Sessions indicated that as attorney general he would revisit and likely overturn a 2011 opinion by the agency that restored federal gambling law to Congresss original intent and returned power to regulate intrastate gambling to the states.

Conservative split with GOP mega-donor (and casino owner) Sheldon Adelson over his efforts to block online gambling. https://t.co/3a7JHI4hpG pic.twitter.com/e3U6rmPx2r

Whats your view of Obamas administrations interpretation of the Wire Act law to allow online video poker, prompted Sen. Lindsey GrahamLindsey GrahamRepublicans of all people should shun federal online gambling ban McCain, Graham push Trump for 'greater military action' in Syria Tax march protesters pressure Republicans who called for Trump tax returns MORE, who has twice introduced bills to ban online gambling. I was shocked at the memorandumand criticized it, Sessions answered. Apparently, there is some justification or argument that can be made to support the Department of Justices position, but I did oppose it when it happened. When asked if he would revisit the decision, Sessions nodded. I would revisit it and make a decision about it based on careful study and I havent gone that far to give you an opinion today, he said.

The comments sent shockwaves throughout the states many of which legalized some form of Internet gambling and many others are still considering proposals to do so. The memo at issue was one issued by the Justice Departments Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) in 2011 making it clear that the Wire Act, a law enacted by Congress in 1961 to prosecute the mobs telephone sports betting rackets, only prohibits interstate sports gambling.

Though Graham and a handful of other Republicans insist that the OLCs opinion was a unilateral reinterpretation of the Wire Act, it actually restored the law to the original meaning intended by the Congress that enacted it. As I thoroughly detailed in a 2014 study for the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, there is no doubt that law was meant to assist the states in the enforcement of their laws, and not to create a blanked federal prohibition on all Internet gambling.

Opponents of state efforts to legalize online gambling have seized on Sessionss comments, claiming it is indicative of an unstable legal environment as a way to scare state legislatures that are considering proposals to legalize online gambling. Everyone is sort of waiting to hear what the DOJ has to say, Pennsylvania Rep. Aaron Kaufer told reporters. With the fluid situation in Washington, internet gambling is an unreliable and possibly nonexistent source of revenue, David Cookson warned during this months joint hearing on Internet gambling proposals before the Pennsylvania legislature. Cookson represents casino-owner Sheldon Adelsons Coalition to Stop Internet Gambling.

While a small number of Republicans want a federal online gambling ban, many other Republicans, free market organizations, and proponents of federalism have loudly opposed a ban. As he indicated in his testimony, Sessions should be on the side of letting Congress make the lawsnot the DOJ.

As a Republican, he should also favor letting people and the states that represent them make their own decisions and be very cautious about setting a dangerous anti-federalism precedent, not just for online gambling, but for any number of other politically disfavored activities. The decisions made now about online gambling will impact all sorts of issues for years to come.

Michelle Minton is a fellow specializing in consumer policy for the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.

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Republicans of all people should shun federal online gambling ban - The Hill (blog)

White House press secretary Sean Spicer said "further action will definitely be considered by the United States" if the Assad government uses chemical weapons again, during his daily briefing on April 10 at the White House. (Reuters)

It's getting tougher and tougher to be shocked byour politics these days. But if there's one stat that should shock you, it's this one spotlighted by James Hohmann in Tuesday's Daily 202:

Here's how that remarkable political evolution looks:

The stat comes courtesy of our new Washington Post-ABC News poll, which tested reactions to President Trump'sstrikes last week and also tested views back in 2013, when President Barack Obama was considering doing the same. (Democrats, for what it's worth, experienced no such evolution, with 38 percent supporting strikes in 2013 and 37 percent supporting them today.)

So what accounts for the difference for Republicans? The 2013 chemical weapons attack was actually deadlier, so it's not as though this one was unprecedented. Perhaps Republicans decided a more serious response was now warranted, given that the United States didn't wind up retaliating in 2013 and given that Syria did it again after failing to turn over all of its chemical weapons stockpile, as it promised to in a2013 deal.

These are indeed the most charitable conclusions you can draw for the GOP's complete 180.

Much more likely, though, is that it has just about everything to do with partisanship and the man in charge not being named Obama. Here's why.

There was actually another Washington Post-ABC News poll that tested views of what the United States should do in response to Syria using chemical weapons. It came in December 2012 before the 2013 chemical weapons attack. It was a hypothetical.

The question: What if the Syrian government uses chemical weapons against its people? In that case would you support or oppose U.S. military involvement in Syria?

In response to this question, fully 67 percent of Republicans said they would support military involvement.

So 67 percent of Republicans favored military action ifSyria usedchemical weapons. Nine months later, it happened and Obama asked for congressional authorization for missile strikes, and just 22 percent of Republicans supported it. Then, four years later, Syria used chemical weapons again and Trump struck without congressional approval, and 86 percent of Republicans gave him the thumbs-up.

Democrats have often accused Republicans of obstructing everything Obama did for no other reason than that it was Obama doing it. I'll confess here that I think that often oversimplified things and that there were plenty of legitimate ideological differences.

Butat least on one issue, it's pretty clear what happened. Republicans wanted action when Obama didn't, then they didn't when he did. And now that their guy's in charge, they'reeven more gung-ho than they were in 2012.

Yay,blind partisanship.

Original post:
Republicans' transparent, Obama-tinged flip-flop on Syria - Washington Post

United Airlines is under fire after a passenger was forcibly removed from an overcrowded plane in Chicago.

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) Republicans say they are troubled and horrified by the forcible removal of a United Airlines passenger from an overcrowded flight, but they letting state and federal regulators handle the matter for now.

Airport security personnel on Sunday dragged a man from a flight at Chicagos OHare airport, leaving him bruised and bloodied. The video-taped event has sparked national outrage and heavy criticism of United UAL, -0.30%

Also Read:Why you could also get dragged off a plane

In statements emailed to MarketWatch, the top Republicans on the House Transportation Committee said they are monitoring the situation and keeping in contact with the federal regulators as they investigate.

I am troubled by the incident in Chicago in which a paying customer was forcefully removed from a flight without apparent just cause, said Rep. Bill Shuster, a Pennsylvania Republican. This entire situation was poorly managed and avoidable. No one should ever be treated this way.

Also Read: United stock takes a hit

Congressman Frank LoBiondo, a New Jersey Republican, called the incident horrific and absolutely avoidable.

The chief spokesman for President Donald Trump called the United incident troubling, but he also said it was a local matter already under investigation by the proper state and federal authorities.

To watch a human get dragged down an aisle with their head banging off armrests and not think it couldnt have been handled better, I would assume we can all agree upon that, said Sean Spicer in the White House daily briefing with reporters.

House Democrats were more vocal.

Reps. Peter DeFazio and Rick Larsen, the chambers top Democrats on transportation matters, criticized the airline industry practice of overbooking. They asked the Transportation Department to determine whether federal laws were violated and report back to Congress.

While overbooking is not illegal, we are deeply disturbed by the actions taken aboard Flight 3411 to deal with the situation, they said in a joint statement.

Other Democrats on the panel said they would seek hearings.

Late in the day, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie became the first Republican to call for a tougher response. Saying the practice of overbooking has become unconscionable, he urged the Transportation Department to temporarily suspend the authority of airlines to engage in the practice until a thorough review is done.

Opinion: What United should have done after man violently pulled off flight

Under current law, airlines are supposed to offer customers up to $1,350 in exchange for accepting later flights on overcrowded routes.

Hundreds of thousands of seats are overbooked each year, the result of airlines seeking to ensure they dont lose any revenue because of undersold flights or customers who dont show up.

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Republicans 'troubled' by United passenger incident but keeping hands off for now - MarketWatch