The 2016 election was a shock to most of the people who live inside the D.C. beltway and a gift to the conservatives. But they are squandering that gift now with infighting and unreasonable expectations. The healthcare bill proposed by Rep. Paul Ryan is a perfect example. The "American Health Care Act" is not a perfect bill from the conservative point of view, to say the least. However if you look inside the bill you see that it has a number of good things. Among its good points is that it allows the formation of tax-free health savings accounts, proposes to block-grant Medicaid to the states in a massive display of federalism, and cuts funds for the abortion machine known as Planned Parenthood. However, that is not enough for some conservatives. These conservatives look at the bill and see a total piece of trash because of the refundable tax credits and other provisions of the bill. But rather than try to work with the bill and fix it, they have gone nuclear on it. They refuse to support the bill in any way, to even negotiate it their way, and will settle only for a wholesale repeal of Obamacare and an end to all the entitlements related to Obamacare. They want a "Clean Repeal" or nothing at all. The reality is that they are going to get nothing at all. When these conservatives propose the Clean Repeal bill, it will not pass the Senate due to the Democrats' filibuster. Futhermore, many Republicans such as Senators John McCain, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins and Lindsay Graham very well might join the Democrats' filibuster themselves, though they will probably let the Democrats do the dirty work for them. When presented with this undeniable fact, this group of conservatives counter that the filibuster should be done away with by changing the Senate rules. On top of being extremely short-sighted in the kind of power that will give the Democrats when they retake the Senate, such a rule change won't work anyway, as at least all of the aforementioned Republican senators will not vote for the Clean Repeal bill. So the bill will die in the Senate. To this argument, these conservatives say that 2018 is around the corner. However the problem is that they don't just have to get 60 seats for their Clean Repeal bill, they have to get 60 plus whatever number of old guard establishment Republicans won't sign onto, for fear of throwing a single person off health insurance. All the Democrats have to do at this point now is defend the Hail Mary and they have Republicans tipping them on the play-calling. Instead of compromising and moving the ball down the field 50 yards, getting what they can, and keeping up the pressure, they want it all right now and they won't even play if they can't get it. This is going to result in a disaster for the Republicans. If they gut the rules, still fail, and let the Democrats take back the House or Senate in 2018, President Trump will be impeached for jaywalking and the establishment will have finally have gotten rid of a thorn in their side that they never wanted to begin with. The Democrats will get the ball back, hand it off to a power running back and keep making yards. America will lose the game. Its time for a new coach and a new playbook. Robert Simmons Jr. MSc.Author of: Maintainable Java (Kindle)(iTunes) LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/robert-simmons/40/852/a39
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