(July 18, 2017 chat with Ron Cordova and Fredrick Brennan about the defeat of the Healthcare reform bill.)
Fredrick
[6:21 PM]
I think it's interesting that The Goldwater is for the recently defeated GOP bill
you know that you can be a conservative and not agree with everything Trump and the Republicans do right.
the GOP bill had tons of problems and I'm glad Ted Cruz and Rand Paul keep defeating each new iteration
Freedom Caucus 4 life
Ron [6:40 PM]
@Fredrick how would you reform health care?
Fredrick
[6:40 PM]
so, right now nothing is really getting done because you have people like Paul Ryan in charge, and they are the people the president has to negotiate with.
having a new president does not change the US's corrupt government
before the election people were saying that no matter who is in Congress the same corporations are always in power and that's absolutely true
Donald Trump can't change that, and since he's a businessman he knows that he can only negotiate on things that the other side is willing to bend on
we need tort reform, but lawyers are big lobbyists, and most Congressmen are themselves former lawyers and have many friends who are lawyers, so good luck getting lawyers to lower the pay of lawyers
we need far fewer regulations, and we need to start with breaking up the American Medical Association's monopoly
we need to make medical patents expire faster, and reform patent law generally
none of these changes were in the bill, and that's why Cruz and Ryan keep voting against, and why people like me keep supporting their votes against
we know that if we let the GOP get this "we did it! we repealed Obamacare!" win, our libertarian wing of the party is not going to get heard on these issues ever, and that's what's happening in Congress
these defecting Republican senators are patriots
obviously I also have some other ideas about how we could reform healthcare, but they are far outside party orthodoxy :wink: we could have Medicaid pay for fertility treatments for those whose children will likely be disabled without those treatments, for example of a fringe idea.
The Goldwater writes . . . " It is unclear exactly what problems they have with the proposed bill or what their motivations are. "
Ron [6:49 PM]
@Fredrick so Paul Ryan is stopping these bills because they aren’t to his satisfaction. since everybody else in congress knows this already, why don’t they make the bill to his satisfaction?
Fredrick
[6:49 PM]
no…
Paul Ryan and the rest of Congress is making the bills
The far-right wing of the party keeps stopping the bills, joined with the Democrats
Both oppose for (VERY) different reasons, but just their opposition is enough to stop the bill, they don't have to agree about why they disagree
Cruz and Rand Paul, the House Freedom Caucus, the American Heritage Foundation and the Club for Growth have repeatedly said why the far-right wing keeps voting Nay
Conservative groups, including Heritage Action, the Cato Institute, Americans for Prosperity, FreedomWorks, and the Tea Party Patriots all oppose the bill. [127]
If you read the statements of any of these groups, you'll see basically what I wrote above in long form
_Only_ mainstream establishment Republicans have been supporting these bills, both in the House and the Senate
they just don't get it, they don't get what got Trump elected, they don't understand that while a lot of the new Republican members of the House and Senate, they aren't going to sign unsound legislation into law to give favors to lobbyists
The far-right wing of the party is betting that Obamacare will start coming apart in the next few years, and then we'll get to repeal Obamacare from a position of strength, not weakness
Because then probably our proposals which actually would help will get in the bill
So, the Freedom Caucus would rather wait than allow the mainstream Republicans to get their win
The GOP is a highly fractured party as anyone who watched the Republican primaries should know
