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President Donald Trump, in fulfilling what was one of his most consequential campaign promises, said earlier this month that his administration is preparing to repeal and replace Obamacare by the end of March.

Obamacare is a disaster folks, its a disaster. Were doing Obamacare. Were in the final stages.So we will be submitting sometime in early March, mid-March, Trump told reporters Feb. 16 during his first solo White House news conference.

But the task ahead is a daunting challenge, as Republicans on Capitol Hill are reportedly grappling with what a new plan might entail.

Michael Cannon, director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington, D.C., told TheBlaze during an exclusive interview Thursday that Republicans are not only grappling with the issue, but that they are also confused about what Senate rules will allow them to repeal, having just a simple majority.

Theres a lot of confusion about Senate rules regarding what they have the votes to do about whether the plan theyre talking about right now would actually repeal Obamacare or just sort of rename it, Cannon said.I believe the House is operating under this presumption the Senate requires 60 votes to repeal the ACAs regulations so the House is proceeding under the assumption they wont be able to repeal those regulations.

Cannon cited House Speaker Paul Ryans plan, which he called Obamacare lite. But, as Cannon noted, he isnt the only one calling it that.

I would say that the Republican establishment position is that theyre going to keep parts of Obamacare. I dont think Obamacare lite is what we should do, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said during a Feb. 15 interview with Fox News host Neil Cavuto.

Idaho Republican Rep. Raul Labrador used the same phrase while referring to top Republicans reported plan to replace the health care overhaul.

Im hearing a lot of members say that they want Obamacare lite, Labrador said Jan. 31 during a Bloomberg interview.

Thats not what we promised the American people. Im very concerned about the things Im hearing in the conference because theyre different than the things Ive heard over the last six years, Labrador added.

Cannon said that Republican leadership is discussing keeping in place core provisions of Obamacare, such as requiring everyone in a particular insurance pool to pay the same premium regardless of the individual risk they pose, taxpayer subsidies for health care insurers and perhaps even the individual mandate that requires all Americans to buy health insurance or pay a penalty.

Cannon said that Republicans wouldnt impose a penalty on uninsured Americans exactly how Obamacare does but that, instead, tax credits would be offered to the millions of insured Americans while uninsured Americans would be ineligible for the same credits. That, according to Cannon, is the same sort of financial penalty as is imposed under the current law.

But what Republicans are planning, Cannon said, is to get rid of many of the Obamacare taxes, such as taxes on premiums, certain medical devices, health insurance companies and high earners who receive Medicare. Those sources of revenue could all be gone if top Republicans have their way.

But Cannon said that model likely wont work if Republicans end up keeping many of the subsidies and tax credits.

So I dont think that approach really has legs. I think theyre going to try that until they realize that doesnt work, Cannon told TheBlaze.

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) agreed. During an interview with The Hill back in December, he said,There needs to be some source of revenue.

Cannon pointed to a Congressional Budget Office analysis from last year, when Republicans were attempting to repeal Obamacare, which found that repealing the taxes in Obamacare without getting rid of or altering its tax credits and subsidies could have catastrophic effects.

It would essentially destroy the individual market, Cannon said.

On the other hand, if Republicans do decide to keep Obamacares taxes to pay for the credits and subsidies, it could very well be political suicide.

For six years, Republicans campaigned on repealing Obamacare. In 2014, after taking back control of both the House and Senate, Republicans made multiple attempts to repeal what many consider to be former President Barack Obamas signature domestic achievement. All of this,not to mention the numerous promises Trump made throughout the 2016 election cycle to repeal and replace Obamacare on day one.

And to add insult to injury for Republicans, at least one recent poll suggested that a growing number of Americans oppose repealing Obamacare.

A Politico/Morning Consult poll released before Trump took office in January found that just 41 percent of voters approved of Obamacare, while a majority 52 percent disapproved. Now, only one month into Trumps presidency, the same poll conducted a second time found that the country is evenly divided, with 45 percent saying they approve of Obamacare and 45 percent saying they disapprove.

The recent uptick in public support, however, hasnt stopped a number of other Republicans from continuing to advocate for the laws repeal.

Its going to happen, Rep. Michael Burgess of Texas told the Daily Signal Thursday. What [the 2015 bill] demonstrated to me was that if you got the right president in the White House, you could send that bill back down to the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, and you could repeal large pieces of the Affordable Care Act.

Burgess was referring to a bill, passed by both the House and Senate last year, which Obama later vetoed. The legislation aimed to repeal parts of Obamacare, including Medicaid expansion, the medical device tax and the so-called Cadillac tax for expensive plans, according to Politico.

Tim Phillips, president of the conservative group Americans for Prosperity, also said Republicans would be mistaken to go back on their promise.

Obamacare repeal has been litigated in four consecutive national elections, and the result has been the most devastating losses for the Democratic Party since the 1920s. The greatest peril for Republicans in Congress will be if they break their word,Phillips said, according to Real Clear Politics.

FreedomWorks, another conservative grassroots organization, is slated to hold a rally March 15 in Washington, D.C. where they will urge lawmakers to keep their campaign promises. Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz is scheduled to attend that event.

Will conservatives attempts to remind Republican lawmakers of their repeated promises to repeal and replace Obamacare actually work, though?

It might, Cannon told TheBlaze, but it looks like Republicans are determined to exhaust every alternative first.

Continued here:
Republicans 'grappling' with whether to keep Obamacare 'core provisions' - TheBlaze.com

By Jamie Riley By Jamie Riley February 23 at 5:35 PM

Virginia Republicans arent big fans of drama.

At least not of the political sort. In a Republican Party of Virginia press releaseissued Thursday, the RPV said the antics on display at various congressional town hall meetings and the calls for even more such events are more about drama than electoral discontent.

This ignores just how much Republicans relied upon congressional town hall drama and voter discontent during the Obama presidency.

Lest we forget, consider the town halls then-Rep. Tom Perriello (D-Va.) held during the height of the debate over the Affordable Care Act. According to the New York Times, they were marathon affairs, reportedly lasting an average of five hours, often ending well after midnight.

Perriello lost his reelection bid that year. Maybe it was the drama that wore him down. Or perhaps it was the discontent in his congressional district that pushed him out of office in 2010. He is trying to stage a statewide comeback this year.

Or consider another Democratic incumbent from 2010, congressman Glenn Nye (D-Va.).

Nye avoidedholding town halls in his Hampton Roads district in 2010. According to Politico, this was evidence of a clear enthusiasm gap between Republicans and Democrats, with public polls and anecdotal evidence showing the GOP is fired up for the midterm election and Democratic voters are not.

Nye lost his reelection bid in 2010.

At one time, Virginia Republicans embraced drama with both arms and stoked discontent as furiously as possible because it suited their electoral goals.

And 2010 was a very good year for the GOP. Nationwide, Republicans retook control of the House, helped in part by victories over Perriello, Nye and long time 9th District Rep. Rick Boucher.

So its no mystery Democrats hope to use the very same tactics to push them to victory in 2018. It would be political malpractice or them not to do so.

It makes even more sense that Democrats would seek to push 10th district Rep. Barbara Comstock (R) to hold a town hall event. Putting Comstock on the defensive, even for a moment, with the cameras rolling, would make priceless 2018 campaign fodder.

The Democrats problem, though, isnt their energy they seem to have plenty of that. Its not even their anger or perceived bad manners. If politicians cant endure the wrath of their constituents (and others who happen to show up), they probably arent suited for the job.

Their problem is that unlike Republican activists seven years ago, they dont have a single issue they can point to as a focus for their discontent.

Yes, President Trump gets them agitated, and they are eager to resist him. But is that enough to sway anyone else to join them on the electoral barricades?

Christopher Newport Universitys Quentin Kidd told me that if the resistance theme is used simply to mobilize a group of voters who otherwise wouldnt engage, but the issues on which Democrats campaign are the standard fare of education, transportation, taxes and so on, then Republicans are going to be in an okay position.

But if the anger on display in town halls, street protests, social media and elsewhere is on a par with what Republicans mustered in the 2010 congressional elections with opposition to Obamacare leading the charge Kidd said then Republicans are going to be on the defensive across the board.

Democrats will choose just how much of a resistance candidate they want in their gubernatorial candidate in the June primary.The states Republican members of Congress should watch those results closely.

They will cast votes on the Trump agenda between now and 2018. If Democrats opt for full-bore resistance in 2017, and its successful in November, then enduring a little drama at town hall meetings will be the least of the GOPs worries.

Norman Leahy is a political reporter for the American Media Instituteand producer of the Score radio show.

View post:
Virginia Republicans dislike the drama - Washington Post (blog)

(Youtube/Springdale Public Schools)

GARNER, Iowa When a voter here asked whether Sen. Charles E. Grassley supports a probe of President Trumps tax returns, the Republican gave a qualified yes. In Virginia, asked about Russian interference in the presidential election, Rep. David Brat said an investigator should follow the rule of law wherever it leads. And in Arkansas, Sen. Tom Cotton told 1,400 people sardined into a high school auditorium that the Affordable Care Act has helped Arkansans.

This weeks congressional town halls have repeatedly found Republicans hedging their support for the new presidents agenda and in many cases contradicting their past statements. Hostile questions put them on record criticizing some of the fights Trump has picked or pledging to protect policies such as the more popular elements of Obamacare. And voters got it all on tape, promising to keep hounding their lawmakers if they falter.

Theres more of a consensus among Republicans now that youve got to be more cautious with what youre going to do, Grassley said after an event here, referring to efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. That didnt mean much to me in November and December. But it means a lot now.

No Republican could say that the raucous town halls surprised them. Since December, a growing number of liberal organizations and activists have shared strategies for getting public answers from members of Congress. More than a thousand local groups have been founded to organize around the Indivisible Guide, an organizational how-to manual drafted by former Democratic staffers. Many thousands more have shown up of their own volition at town halls in their districts.

At every town hall, some activists have followed Indivisible advice, spreading themselves around the rooms to avoid looking like a clique, holding up signs with simple messages such as Disagree and synchronizing their chants.

The efficiency of the protests has led some of their targets, including Trump, to question their legitimacy.

The so-called angry crowds in home districts of some Republicans are actually, in numerous cases, planned out by liberal activists, Trump tweeted Tuesday.

[In N.J., record crowd at town hall presses Republican to get tough on Trump]

Fox News, which frequently covered 2009s protests against Democrats and lent several of its hosts to tea party rallies, has largely ignored the town halls. Other coverage in conservative media has focused on the role of veterans of Barack Obamas political campaigns and the Obama-founded Organizing for America in promoting the Indivisible Guide.

Obama told them to get in our faces, Rush Limbaugh told listeners of his radio show on Wednesday. Well, theyre in our faces now, and hows it working out? People are starting to get tired of it.

A number of Republicans have refused to hold town halls and courted ridicule. In California, Colorado, Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania, local Indivisible groups held empty chair town halls where activists could meet and note the absence of their legislators.

In Pennsylvania, activists propped up an empty suit to symbolize Rep. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.); in other states, following the guide, they posted dummy Have You Seen Me? ads. In New York, they derided Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) for canceling town halls just a week after publishing a report, Millennials & the GOP, urging more members of Congress to hold them.

It is unfortunate and counterproductive that a small number of activists believe the best way to address the very serious issues facing our country is to hijack and ambush community events for the sole purpose of political theater, Stefanik wrote on Facebook.

[Republicans are facing the ire of the anti-Trump movement this week. Will it last?]

Its true that organization has boosted attendance at town halls.

If youve got a personal connection to what this member of Congress is trying to do, youve got a great story to tell and a lot of legitimacy to ask that question, said Indivisible Guide co-author Ezra Levin on a Sunday night conference call, which more than 30,000 activists dialed in to hear. Its really important to be polite, but dont be scared of being firm.

But other Republicans who held public events this week have pushed back against Trumps characterization of protests, and his attack on the media as an enemy of Americans.

No American is another Americans enemy, Cotton said on Wednesday night. He also said: I dont care if anybody here is paid or not. Youre all Arkansans.

They are our fellow Americans with legitimate concerns, Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) tweeted on Tuesday, referring to the protesters. We need to stop acting so fragile.

[At a town hall in Trump country, an America thats pleading to be heard]

While the National Republican Congressional Committee warned of possible violence at town halls, this weeks events have been peaceful. The harshest treatment has been loud heckling at answers voters didnt like, for instance when lawmakers struggled to defend the new secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, or to provide details on how the Affordable Care Act could be replaced.

In Iowa, Grassley was booed over his vote for DeVos, and he pointedly defended it only by saying that a president deserved to pick his Cabinet. In Louisiana, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) was laughed at for saying he had not stayed for the entire DeVos hearing.

Cassidy, a medical doctor, is also the author of an ACA replacement bill that Republicans like Grassley have tentatively endorsed. If passed, it would allow states to keep the structure of the ACA, including its Medicaid expansion, even if other states opted out. Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, has derided that solution. If you like your Obamacare, you can keep your Obamacare, is how Meadows described it a wry reference to an Obama pledge about individual plans that was belied when the ACA went into effect.

[Dave Brat: I thought it was going to be worse]

The Republicans whove had the neatest escape from town halls had already promised to save major portions of the law. Rep. Leonard Lance (R-N.J.), one of 23 Republicans whose districts voted for Hillary Clinton over Trump, told an audience Wednesday night that he would go for a replacement plan only if it saved popular parts of the ACA.

I do not favor repeal without there being a replacement in place, he said. Instead, he explained to a patient crowd that he wants to protect coverage for people with preexisting conditions, allow people under 26 to remain on their parents plans and ensure no lifetime caps on coverage. I want to assure the public that the majority in each house of the present Congress, I believe, will make sure these provisions continue.

Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), a staunch Trump supporter from a deep red district, told constituents on Wednesday that preexisting conditions and 26-year-olds were the two Republican provisions that made it into the bill, and would obviously be part of a replacement.

But in 2009, it was Democrats, not Republicans, who introduced those provisions of the ACA. And the replacement framework from Republican leadership promises continuous coverage for people with preexisting conditions and also current health care plans; only the Cassidy plan, co-sponsored by moderate Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and derided by conservatives, goes further.

Republicans have also struggled to answer constituents who took advantage of the ACA provision that allowed states to expand Medicaid to some people over the poverty line. In Cottons state, where a Republican-run government has maintained a version of the expansion called Arkansas Works, more than 300,000 people are estimated to have received coverage since the ACA went into effect.

Those results, and the stakes of repeal, were less clear when Cotton won his seat. The ACA, he said during a town hall meeting in 2014, was nothing but a churn operation designed to grow the power of the federal government. That year, he defeated an incumbent Democrat by 17 points.

Kim Kavin in Branchburg, N.J., contributed to this report.

Read more at PowerPost

Read more from the original source:
Republicans distance themselves from Trump's agenda at rowdy town halls - Washington Post

Former House Speaker John Boehners comments come as Republican lawmakers across the country are facing angry constituents at town halls worried that Obamacare will be yanked away without a suitable replacement. | AP Photo

He says talk in November about lightning-fast passage of a new health care framework was wildly optimistic.

By Darius Tahir

02/23/17 11:04 AM EST

Updated 02/23/17 11:46 AM EST

Former House Speaker John Boehner predicted on Thursday that a full repeal and replace of Obamacare is not going to happen.

Boehner, who resigned in 2015 amid unrest among conservatives, said at an Orlando health care conference that the idea that a repeal-and-replace plan would blitz through Congress is just happy talk.

Story Continued Below

Instead, he said changes to former President Barack Obamas signature legislative achievement would likely be relatively modest.

[Congressional Republicans are] going to fix Obamacare I shouldnt call it repeal-and-replace, because its not going to happen, he said.

Boehners comments come as Republican lawmakers across the country are facing angry constituents at town halls worried that Obamacare will be yanked away without a suitable replacement.

President Donald Trump has said in recent days that he will release a plan by early to mid-March on how the administration plans to move forward on a repeal-and-replace plan.

On Thursday, Boehner said the talk in November about lightning-fast passage of a new health care framework was wildly optimistic.

I started laughing, he said. Republicans never ever agree on health care.

Most of the framework of the Affordable Care Act thats going to be there, Boehner concluded.

Read the original post:
Boehner: Republicans won't repeal and replace Obamacare - Politico

Key Republicans in the U.S. House told the Federal Reserve not to issue new rules until President Donald Trumps pick to lead regulation of Wall Street at the agency is confirmed.

Should the Fed defy the request, lawmakers may undo their work, according to a Thursday letter to FedChair Janet Yellen from Jeb Hensarling, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, and 33 other Republicans on the panel.

We will work with our colleagues to ensure that Congress scrutinizes the Federal Reserves actions -- and, if appropriate, overturns them," according to the letter.

Trump hasnt announced his selections for any of the three vacancies at the seven-member Fed board, including the never-filled role of vice chairman for supervision, which was created by the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial overhaul law. Among the three positions is that of Daniel Tarullo, who has served as the Feds point man on financial regulation, and plans to step down in April.

The Fed has received Republicans letter and has no further comment, said Eric Kollig, a spokesman.

Republicans and the Trump administration say Dodd-Frank and other financial rules have stifled economic growth and harmed consumers. Trump, who has called the law a disaster, signed an executive order earlier this month instructing the Treasury Department to examine financial rules and file a report on its findings.

Earlier, other Republicans -- including Patrick McHenry, from North Carolina, and Senator Pat Toomey, from Pennsylvania -- called for Yellen to hold off on various Fed activities until Trump nominees are in place.

In his letter, Hensarling of Texas referred to possible rules related to stress tests for banks that Yellen mentioned when she testified before the House earlier this month. Hensarling said that the Fed should halt rulemaking "absent an emergency," according to the letter.

Link:
Republicans Call on Fed to Halt Rules Until Trump's Picks Are in Place - Bloomberg