Doomed

They are rage, brutal, without mercy. But you. You will be worse. Rip and tear, until it is done.

So Mitch’s new Bill is the same as the old Bill with Ted Cruz crappifying attached. Paul (say what you will, he’s what passes for an honest politician) and Collins are still firm No and 2 weeks of tenderizing in D.C. August heat and humidity (yeah, I’ve been there, done that) seems unlikely to change their minds. Heller and Murkowski are pretty firm and Capito, though late to the table, is obviously leaning against.

Any 3 of those 5 and session extension is a waste of dry cleaning.

So what’s next? McConnell will try and peel away some Democrats for a measure less nakedly Draconian and pitch it as necessary to save the local exchanges. No doubt it will still be people killing heinous in the hidden details.

Defeat does put a crimp in “Tax Reform” since there’s no longer a $1 Trillion Honeypot filled with the tears of the dying whom we’ve shoved off on icebergs and their mourning relatives to dip into, still- giving more money to rich people is what motivates Republicans and they can hardly stand to confront the idea they hold the keys to all 3 branches of government and came away with nothing.

C’mon guys, it’s easy. Democrats have shown you how to do it. They wasted Super Majorities for nothing much and lived (well, some of them) to brag about how “Centrist” and “Bi-partisan” they are.

You know the worst thing about this? Congress has 2 more weeks to do something stupid.

Senate Republicans Unveil New Health Bill but Divisions Remain
By ROBERT PEAR and THOMAS KAPLAN, The New York Times
JULY 13, 2017

Senate Republican leaders unveiled a fresh proposal to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, revising their bill to help hold down insurance costs for consumers while keeping a pair of taxes on high-income people that they had planned to eliminate.

But the measure was immediately imperiled when two Republican senators, moderate Susan Collins of Maine and conservative Rand Paul of Kentucky, announced they were not swayed — even on a procedural motion to take up the bill next week, a motion to proceed.
…
One more defection would doom the bill and jeopardize the Republicans’ seven-year-old quest to dismantle the health law that is a pillar of President Barack Obama’s legacy. In a sign that more could follow, two other Republican senators, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, unveiled their own alternative plan, just minutes before Senate leaders offered their latest.

Senator Shelley Moore Capito, Republican of West Virginia, expressed “serious concerns about the Medicaid provisions” in the latest draft, although she did not reject it.
Continue reading the main story

With the revised bill, the majority leader, Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, had hoped to win the 50 votes he needs to win Senate passage. But the changes may not have been enough to bridge the vast divide that has opened between the Senate’s most conservative Republicans, who had vowed to destroy the Affordable Care Act “root and branch,” and its moderate Republicans, who worry that deep cuts to Medicaid would leave too many in their states without health care.

Republicans said the revised bill would provide roughly $70 billion in additional funds that states could use to help reduce premiums, hold down out-of-pocket costs and otherwise make health care more affordable. The bill already included more than $100 billion for such purposes.

But the new bill, like earlier versions, would still convert Medicaid from an open-ended entitlement to a system of fixed payments to states. In the event of a public health emergency, state Medicaid spending in a particular part of a state would not be counted toward the spending limits, known as per capita caps, a concession to moderate Republicans but perhaps not enough to get the 50 votes needed for passage.

Overall, the new version of the bill made broad concessions to conservative Republicans who had maintained that the initial draft left too much of the Affordable Care Act in place. Mr. McConnell then backfilled the bill with money intended to placate moderates. That jury-rigging of the bill left neither side completely satisfied.

For instance, in a departure from current law, the bill would allow insurers, under certain conditions, to offer health plans that did not comply with standards in the Affordable Care Act. Under that law, insurers sell regulated health plans through a public insurance exchange in each state.

But health care experts worried that such a change would send healthy consumers to low-cost, basic health plans, leaving sick and older consumers to buy more comprehensive health policies at much higher prices. To compensate, Republican leaders added billions of dollars to try to offset rising premiums.
…
To succeed, Mr. McConnell must win over almost all the holdouts in his caucus, a daunting and delicate task given the litany of complaints he faces and the sharp policy differences that he must find a way to bridge.

But the revised bill is broadly similar to the earlier measure that Senate leaders hoped to vote on before the Fourth of July recess, though the new version includes some additional provisions meant to entice reluctant Republican senators with varying policy concerns.

“It appears that little has changed at the core of the bill,” the Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, said on the Senate floor. “The Republican Trumpcare bill still slashes Medicaid. The cuts are every bit as draconian as they were in the previous version — a devastating blow to rural hospitals, to Americans in nursing homes, to those struggling with opioid addiction and so many more.”

Like the previous bill, it would end the requirement that most Americans have health coverage, and it would make deep cuts to Medicaid, capping payments to states and rolling back its expansion under the Affordable Care Act. Though some Republican senators expressed concern about how the previous bill would affect Medicaid, Senate leaders stuck with the same approach in the new version.
…
Mr. McConnell is trying to avoid a repeat of his first attempt to push his bill through the chamber, when he was forced to delay a vote planned for late last month because of opposition from Republican senators.

During debate on the bill, senators are expected to propose numerous amendments on the Senate floor, some of which could modify provisions of the bill affecting Medicaid.

Republicans expect that an analysis of the new bill will be released by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office early next week. The previous bill would have increased the number of people without health insurance by 22 million in 2026 compared with the Affordable Care Act, the budget office found.

Mr. McConnell has said he intends to take up the revised bill next week, although it is unclear if he would try to move ahead if he did not know for sure whether he had the votes to begin debate — or to ultimately pass the bill.

Yeah, uh… good luck with that.

You’ve won – it’s over. You stopped the invasion and closed the portal. But it’s come at a price – Argent, VEGA. This entire operation. You see, I’ve watched you work – come to understand your motivation. You think the only way is to kill them all – leave nothing behind – and you may be right. But we can’t just shut it all down. Without Argent Energy it will be worse. I don’t expect you to agree.

But with this we can continue our work. I am not the villain in this story. I do what I do because there is no choice.

Re-routing tether coordinates… Complete.

Our time is up. I can’t kill you – but I won’t have you standing in our way. Until we see each other again.