So the math goes something like this as near as I can figure it. There are 435 seats in the House of Representatives 4 of which are currently unfilled bringing the total to 431. This makes a majority of 50% + 1 == 216.
There are 238 Republican members which means they can lose only 23 votes within their caucus before they are no longer a majority (215 is not a majority).
At this moment according to The Hill, which is not by any means a particularly Democratic leaning publication but does a pretty good job with inside the Capitol information (given their focus you might expect that) there are 22 Republicans who have publicly committed to voting against the Ryan (no, you don’t skate with me bucko) / Trump (I don’t really care as long as it has my name on it in Gold!) Health Insurance (doesn’t really have anything at all to do with Health Care) Bill including the MacArthur Amendment gutting protection for pre-existing conditions, and there are 57 who are “undecided”.
So if only one of those 57 goes against it the Bill will get pulled again (umm… yeah, that’s why you didn’t hear much about Trumpcare 2.0, it’s like Vista).
What does that mean?
Well, House members are scheduled to take next week off (thank goodness, it means they can’t screw things up) and they can expect the same amount of flack or more that they experienced over the Easter Break (yup, only 2 weeks ago, some job innit?), which will delay things much further than they expected.
The reason that is important is without the $2 Trillion “savings” from killing sick people (and given the D.C. Neo Liberal Consensus fetish with “Balanced Budgets”) they won’t be able to proceed with their $2 Trillion Tax Break for Billionaires (funny how that math works out).
So I may be a little premature in pronouncing this particular Zombie nailed back in its coffin but I really don’t see how Republicans can run against this-
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Vent Hole