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Senate healthcare repeal bill fails - Collins, Murkowski, and McCain voted no

I'm still not a fan of John McCain, but at least he did the right thing this time.

He didn't though. He only voted no because he didn't have confidence in Ryan to deliver what he wanted: the chance to make the repeal more broad.

He literally voted no because he couldn't be sure they could make this thing WORSE for us.
 

TrojanAg

Member
I like how the House, along with Trump, is trying to shift the blame on the Senate without stopping to think that maybe this bill can't get passed because what they drew up in the first place is a complete fucking mess.
 
I miss having an actual president...
I tried to warn my Republican friends but they just wouldn't listen. The last thing that you want is an executive businessman as president. CEO's are not (in most cases) in the weeds, they organize on a high level. You can't have a president that doesn't understand the basic building blocks of our form of government which is Constitutional law. Trump doesn't seem to have taken a basic civics class much less understand the complexity of legislation.
 

Auto_aim1

MeisaMcCaffrey
Without McCain Obamacare wouldn't have been possible in the first place. His loss to Obama was so massive it gave Dems 60 senators. He's the father of Obamacare and he just saved his baby ;)
 

Daria

Member
I like how the House, along with Trump, is trying to shift the blame on the Senate without stopping to think that maybe this bill can't get passed because what they drew up in the first place is a complete fucking mess.

why blame themselves when dems are the obstructionists
 
He stood up and called the bill a piece of shit and a "fraud" and then voted yes.

he's a fraud then

Without McCain Obamacare wouldn't have been possible in the first place. His loss to Obama was so massive it gave Dems 60 senators. He's the father of Obamacare and he just saved his baby ;)
the 2008 Crash late in the campaign + an unpopular lameduck Bush 2nd term had more to do with it than McCain's campaign effort.
 

Cybit

FGC Waterboy
Nah. They can only pass one reconciliation bill per topic per budget year, and you can only have one in the process pipes (committees, debate, etc.) at once. Trying and failing doesn't really cost them anything but the time spent voting on it, which they evidently regard as being at an extreme premium.

Problem is that the GOP knows they're going to have a hell of a time passing even a normal budget - the House is still in open civil war. That's why McCain waiting to spike the ball was brutal.

he has no spine, even if he did vote NO on the final vote. he wanted to please everybody by voting YES the first time so it didn't die days ago. he put on a show to make a point and paint himself as a hero when he could've stood his ground prior to last night.

It wouldn't have died had he not let it leave committee; now that they've used one of their reconciliation windows (out of two), they either get to do health care OR tax reform, and health care was part of the tax reform plan. Whether he meant to or not, McCain absolutely screwed the GOP in the worst way possible. Considering how long he's been a Senator - I'm inclined to say he wanted to make sure unilateral ACA repeal was DoA, and so let it get to an actual vote before stabbing McConnell in the back.
 
So is Mccain like that reluctant villain deeply infiltrated in the enemy HQ who sorta saves the day last minute to try and write his previous wrongs?

Like he's not a hero... he's not even 'good', he's just set himself back to neutral.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Übermatik;244773312 said:
So is Mccain like that reluctant villain deeply infiltrated in the enemy HQ who sorta saves the day last minute to try and write his previous wrongs?

Like he's not a hero... he's not even 'good', he's just set himself back to neutral.

McCain is Snape.
 

faisal233

Member
He didn't though. He only voted no because he didn't have confidence in Ryan to deliver what he wanted: the chance to make the repeal more broad.

He literally voted no because he couldn't be sure they could make this thing WORSE for us.

He also made sure ACA repeal is done for this year. No more reconciliation repeal for the year. If he didn't move the bill forward then repeal would have stayed on the table.

also...

DF1X6opUIAAwPf2.png
 
I like how the House, along with Trump, is trying to shift the blame on the Senate without stopping to think that maybe this bill can't get passed because what they drew up in the first place is a complete fucking mess.

None of the republicans in the house want to be primaried by a psycho because they didn't vote for a repeal. Part of the admins pitch to the GOP was that not passing anything is worse than passing garbage for them politically. Democratically vulnerable people in the house are probably upset, but the rest are loving it. They stay safe from a primary and get to blame the senate.
 
I tried to warn my Republican friends but they just wouldn't listen. The last thing that you want is an executive businessman as president. CEO's are not (in most cases) in the weeds, they organize on a high level. You can't have a president that doesn't understand the basic building blocks of our form of government which is Constitutional law. Trump doesn't seem to have taken a basic civics class much less understand the complexity of legislation.

Right, and it's even worse when the CEO had no shareholders or board of directors to answer to and could do as they pleased all day surrounded by yes men.
 
Wouldn't it be pretty hard to work on a bipartisan bill if the dividing difference between the democrats and the republicans is the question of healthcare being a "right" or not?
 

Zolo

Member
Wouldn't it be pretty hard to work on a bipartisan bill if the dividing difference between the democrats and the republicans is the question of healthcare being a "right" or not?

Yes. Increasingly different ideological differences is what makes it hard to be bipartisan these days.
 
thanks for the info,
so by doing this, McCain checkmated the GOP for an entire year.

no fuckin' way they will try to pull any more shit months prior to mid-terms

I think the other thing he did here was save republicans from themselves. If they kept hammering away at taking away obamacare we'd keep seeing shit like "22 million will lose insurance" McCain doing this means republicans also stop getting bad optics for the rest of the year around health care and the American attention span is short. They'll forget about this shit come mid terms because it won't be on the table anymore.
 

Zolo

Member
I think the other thing he did here was save republicans from themselves. If they kept hammering away at taking away obamacare we'd keep seeing shit like "22 million will lose insurance" McCain doing this means republicans also stop getting bad optics for the rest of the year around health care and the American attention span is short. They'll forget about this shit come mid terms because it won't be on the table anymore.

Until they go over this again next year?
 

Mrbob

Member
I think the other thing he did here was save republicans from themselves. If they kept hammering away at taking away obamacare we'd keep seeing shit like "22 million will lose insurance" McCain doing this means republicans also stop getting bad optics for the rest of the year around health care and the American attention span is short. They'll forget about this shit come mid terms because it won't be on the table anymore.
Lawrence Odonnell made a strong argument last night that this was the best scenario for Mcconnell. He takes a close loss on a bill he didn't even want to bring forth. Plus it saves other Republicans from being destroyed on campaign reelection.
 
Wouldn't it be pretty hard to work on a bipartisan bill if the dividing difference between the democrats and the republicans is the question of healthcare being a "right" or not?

Yes it would be hard. Bipartisan efforts don't need republicans to vote en masse though. The issue is that while they hold the majority any bipartisan effort would be stopped short as their party leaders just won't bring it up to a vote.

Lawrence Odonnell made a strong argument last night that this was the best scenario for Mcconnell. He takes a close loss on a bill he didn't even want to bring forth. Plus it saves other Republicans from being destroyed on campaign reelection.

The votes were tallied last night. The campaign ads are already being made.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hT2pp_KrJGg

The video itself is fascinating to watch. You can see all the democrats in the background reacting to McCain's no, some giving fistpump, others clapping until ordered to stay silent. On the other side you have the little group of GOP people surrounding McCain immediately lowering their heads after the no. But off course, the McConnell reaction takes the cake. Where is that conniving little smile now, fuckface?
 
The votes were tallied last night. The campaign ads are already being made.

Yep, the problem for them is that they went ahead with the vote anyway. It's basically like a scene in a movie where a person tries to murder someone but then they find out the gun doesn't have any bullets. They still pulled the trigger.
 
He didn't though. He only voted no because he didn't have confidence in Ryan to deliver what he wanted: the chance to make the repeal more broad.

He literally voted no because he couldn't be sure they could make this thing WORSE for us.
....how? In his statement McCain clearly says to work with Democrats to improve the bill and pass it through regular order.
 

borghe

Loves the Greater Toronto Area
...

I'm still sitting here stunned.

After giving that speech, then voting for the even worse bill just hours later, this was not the least expected.

there's a point here to be made.. but it's not what you are thinking.

McCain didn't vote for an even worse bill hours later.. McCain (and all GOP) voted to OPEN DEBATE on the bill. There was an interesting article yesterday pointing out this very thing on John Kerry in 2004. Basically everyone is going to pull "so-and-so voted to destroy healthcare" because they voted on the motion to debate.. even IF THEY vote against the actual bill (literally what McCain just did, except he DID vote previously on shittier bills)

Anywho, any championing McCain... settle down. well this is definitely a huge win, it's hardly a change of face. More just being a realist on getting a GOP-only bill through (which he even said earlier) than actually coming to any defense..

I will give him credit though for being one of the only senators who are finally standing up and asking "is it really worth it for us to force ANY OLD BILL through just for the sake of saying we passed something?"

Also all the talk of "the other side" after the vote was almost just as depressing as had the vote actually passed. It really is "us vs them" in congress.... with neither side really giving a shit or interested in working with the other one.
 
I think the other thing he did here was save republicans from themselves. If they kept hammering away at taking away obamacare we'd keep seeing shit like "22 million will lose insurance" McCain doing this means republicans also stop getting bad optics for the rest of the year around health care and the American attention span is short. They'll forget about this shit come mid terms because it won't be on the table anymore.
Frankly I don't care what the theatrics are behind this, if McCain's vote kills ACA repeal then it's saved thousands of lives.

Democrats are already poised to gain in the next elections anyway, midterms are almost always bad for the President's party, this isn't something that just started with Obama and it's certainly not exclusive to the Democrats. Would their gains be bigger with the GOP pulling the trigger like this and likely plunging our economy into recession? Well, sure, but I've never been an accelerationist.
 
Until they go over this again next year?


The president nor his constituents can even articulate what's wrong with the ACA, they just know it's bad. It's a job killer. It's unraveling, etc. I think they'll revist it next year by saying "Get us more republicans so we can avoid what happened in July."

Lawrence Odonnell made a strong argument last night that this was the best scenario for Mcconnell. He takes a close loss on a bill he didn't even want to bring forth. Plus it saves other Republicans from being destroyed on campaign reelection.
That's what I'm thinking. And I think McCain, while he made the right choice here, did it for reasons that support his party. Look, these guys, the republicans, are totally willing to go off of the cliff. They've shown that with their support of Trump and some of the batshit bills that have come forth. This is the same congress that votes for shit that has approval ratings in the teens, that wouldn't do a THING about guns after 20 school kids got killed, etc. They do not give a shit, and they've been working their way towards the brink for ages. If they went through with this skinny repeal that would be completely going off the cliff and would be the death kneel for the republicans for the next 10-15 years. By McCain helping to kill this, the dems have a short term victory but I don't think it will translate into winning seats in 2018 and I think McCain knew that when he did it. If healthcare is off the table then republicans don't have to keep falling on that sword. They can work on tax reform and other shit they've promised and I can see a lot of people being more lenient on republicans in 2018 if their paychecks appear to be bigger due to a tax cut. Even if that tax cut plunges us further into debt.

Bottom line, I think McCain made a calculated choice that helps keep republicans in power by saving them from themselves on this health care bullshit.

Frankly I don't care what the theatrics are behind this, if McCain's vote kills ACA repeal then it's saved thousands of lives.

Democrats are already poised to gain in the next elections anyway, midterms are almost always bad for the President's party, this isn't something that just started with Obama and it's certainly not exclusive to the Democrats. Would their gains be bigger with the GOP pulling the trigger like this and likely plunging our economy into recession? Well, sure, but I've never been an accelerationist.
I don't disagree. What the republicans were doing was basically becoming accessories to murder, as hyperbolic as that sounds. I'm HAPPY this bill got killed, but I don't think this is going to translate to more democratic wins in 2018 because nothing bad has happened to the republican constituency in regards to health care at this time because McCain killed the bill. Peoples' memories are short when it comes to politics. If this passed and people were hurt then I think you'd see a wave of democrats getting elected, which is part of my point on why McCain did this. No republican is going to vote democrat, period. If they had their healthcare taken away and watched a love one die, that could change. It won't now. This helps tried and true republicans keep voting republican because they didn't fuck their own voters in the ass on health care and John McCain is the reason why.
 

Pastry

Banned
We were talking about this over at Poli.

Trump released one of his dumb Weekly Addresses this morning and he looks like shit, even for Trump standards. One of his eyes appears to be swollen shut.

It's probably easy to get pink eye when you're a living breathing asshole.
 
Right, and it's even worse when the CEO had no shareholders or board of directors to answer to and could do as they pleased all day surrounded by yes men.
W. Bush didn't have a deep understanding of governing either but he at least recognized that and surrounded himself with people who did.

Trump seems to think the answer to his incompetence is to surround himself with more Trumps.
 

Ridley1

Neo Member
I tried to warn my Republican friends but they just wouldn't listen. The last thing that you want is an executive businessman as president.

I disagree, the last thing you want in a president (and any politician) is corruption. Yes, Trump is a rude, crude, bull in a china shop and that rubs certain people the wrong way.

The current Obamacare disaster is a bit deeper and scarier to me than I see it being portrayed. The Democrats have won in many many ways but they seem oblivious to it. I'm sure you've seen the videos comparing Trump's speeches to Bill Clinton's. Everyone has moved left and the current Republicans are as liberal now as the Democrats were in the 90's....probably more so considering Trump's pro LBGT stance.

Obamacare passed without a single Republican vote and with ample help from the MSM to lie to the "stupid American people" (those were Jonathan Gruber's, Obama Care's architect's words). On a very very high level the government was paying for healthcare for certain people. They hoped that by getting more people and young people to sign up (those people statistically pay more for insurance than they would incur healthcare costs) healthcare companies would win and be happy. It didn't work out that way and the free government money by design ran out Jan 2017.

So if someone is paying your bills, and they stop, now you have to pay your bills. If we s/bills/Obama Care/g the liberals have successfully equated this to murder. And so the scary thing is Republicans are afraid to vote for the thing they want/need for fear of the liberal backlash. (Quick tangent the same thing happened with the Russia sanctions vote. Liberals have falsely equated the confirmed "Russia interference" with "wikileaks". Since wikileaks seemed like a big deal then Russia interference was a big deal and punishments should be big. And in our post McCarthism if you didn't vote for the big punishment you'd be opening an investigation into yourself that you're a Russian agent.)

Obamacare didn't work. But people love Obama and his name is tied to it so they want it even if its completely irrational, broken, and unsustainable. Even worse, its already leaving counties uninsured which liberals equate to murder but now justify as long as its still called Obamacare? That level of idiocy and hypocrisy should be really really concerning to the American people.
 

Kusagari

Member
Everything McCain did seems calculated as hell to fuck McConnell.

Rushed back to vote after his diagnosis, giving the GOP tons of hope they could get something down. Voted on MTP and then on the terrible BCRA he lambasted as a terrible bill earlier. This would give the GOP even more hope he would vote on the eventual skinny bill. Which he apparently did because McConnell had enough faith to bring it up to vote only to end up shell-shocked, no pun intended, when McCain voted no.

He completely and utterly screwed up their reconciliation plans with this. They never would have brought it to vote without him there.

He said there would be a show and there damn sure was one.
 
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