HCR has now reached the Senate floor.
The Motion to proceed passed 51-50 – the GOP lost Collins and Lisa Murkowski.
The talk now is of a skinny bill that passes the Senate, and then HCR goes to conference.
Once again the happy talk that the GOP can’t get anything done proves wrong.
They aren’t there yet, and it is still hard to see a Bill that passes both Houses.
But the time for underestimating them is over.
It appears likely the Senate will pass something that gets the bill to conference. Losing Murkowski means that they are at least 1 short on final passage since Paul will vote no on most anything.
Honestly, as much as I detest him, I wouldn’t bet against McConnell.
Precisely. I am guessing the so-called “skinny bill” probably has the 50 GOP votes needed to pass. A lot of damage could still be done in conference committee afterwards. Every time I see pundits or bloggers spike the proverbial football after a setback in the GOP efforts to kill as many of their fellow Americans as possible, I cringe. Folks need to quite spiking the damned ball and pay attention to what’s going on.
It’s like the bloggers before the election who were certain Clinton would win.
What the GOP in both the House and Senate produced in the way of “health care” legislation has been piss-poor to put it mildly. On the surface, none of those bills should ever have made it as far as they did. In saner times, they would have never seen the light of day. These are not sane times. A realistic appraisal of the risk of some form of repeal making it to tRump’s desk is certainly not the same thing as being fatalistic. After all, repeal is not a done deal. Matthew Yglesias (among others) has all along noted the risk of something passing. What we have on our side is what appears to be a motivated bunch of folks making calls and showing up to protests, a unified Democratic caucus, and some very ugly CBO scores on whatever legislation the GOP has foisted upon us. There are some very real fissures in the GOP caucus in both houses right now. But, the GOP controls the legislative and executive branches, and in theory it should be able to pass laws that a president will sign. This repeal effort should be theirs to lose, and we should act accordingly.
Why would you leave out the commenters who were certain Clinton would win?
I would.
As I noted at the time: I was not certain:
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2016/11/7/103254/612
You’re ignoring the 20 previous times you posted that prediction.