The Republicans are making a last-ditch effort to repeal Obamacare, at least some of it. I\u2019m always suspicious of anything with Lindsey Graham\u2019s name on it. This proposal has some merit, but not much. I\u2019m undecided at the moment.<\/p>\n
On the positive side, Graham-Cassidy removes the mandates and allows states to construct their own mechanisms for administering Obamacare\u2019s expansion. Governments don\u2019t do well at managing much of anything, but state and local governments do better than Washington. States would compete to design the best plans and we would learn a lot about what works and what doesn\u2019t from the process.<\/p>\n
On the negative side, Graham-Cassidy retains most of the Obamacare taxes and accepts its entitlement mentality, while merely shifting administration from Washington to the states. Its proponents call this shift federalism, but that\u2019s a stretch. Real<\/em> federalism means that each state can raise revenue from its own citizens and design unique programs to meet state needs. Graham-Cassidy confiscates revenues from all<\/em> citizens and block grants the money to states with federal strings attached. This is marginally better than having Washington run the program, but it\u2019s not federalism.<\/p>\n If Graham-Cassidy passes, its amalgamation with the House repeal would be a dogfight.\u00a0 It\u2019s unclear what the final legislation would actually say, so this might be a case of Pelosi\u2019s \u201cvoting for a bill to find out what\u2019s in it.\u201d It could get better or worse, most likely the latter.<\/p>\n In the end, Graham-Cassidy will pass or fail for political reasons. Republican senators who fear voters will hold them accountable in 2018 for not passing anything and\/or have concluded that a complete repeal is not possible will probably vote for it. Those like Collins and Murkowski who seem to like Obamacare anyway will probably vote against it. Senator Paul will probably vote against it as well, but because he thinks we can do better.<\/p>\n Getting to 50 will be difficult. This will be an interesting week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Republicans are making a last-ditch effort to repeal Obamacare, at least some of it. I\u2019m always suspicious of anything with Lindsey Graham\u2019s name on it. This proposal has some merit, but not much. I\u2019m undecided at the moment. On the positive side, Graham-Cassidy removes the mandates and allows states to construct their own mechanisms […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1155"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1155\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}