By Dan Calabrese ——Bio and Archives--January 10, 2017
American Politics, News | CFP Comments | Reader Friendly | Subscribe | Email Us
“It is our goal to bring it all together concurrently,” Ryan told reporters after meeting with House Republicans behind closed doors. “We’re going to use every tool at our disposal through legislation, through regulation, to bring replace concurrent along with repeal, so that we can save people from this mess.” In the GOP conference meeting, Ryan told his colleagues he expects the House will press forward and vote Friday on a Senate-passed budget that will start the process to repeal the Affordable Care Act. That’s despite calls from Freedom Caucus members for more details about how the repeal and replacement process would unfold. But Freedom Caucus lawmakers said they didn’t expect to band together and scuttle the budget vote.
“I think some members want more clarification, but I didn’t sense there was going to be organized [opposition],” one Freedom Caucus member told The Hill. Ryan provided no details about what replacement elements would be included, calling it a “Senate question” about what Republicans can put in budget reconciliation.The "Senate question" comment mainly means this: It's easier to repeal ObamaCare than it is to replace it because, if current filibuster rules remain in place, the Senate can bypass the filibuster and pass the repeal with a simple majority vote. The replacement bill will probably be subject to the filibuster, however, so you need 60 votes to cut off debate and get a vote on it. What I think Ryan and McConnell are hoping to do is find ways to build aspects of the replacement into the repeal bill, thus allowing at least the framework of the replacement to also pass with a simple majority. Here's McConnell on Face the Nation echoing Ryan's determination to repeal and replace at the same time:
View Comments
Dan Calabrese’s column is distributed by HermanCain.com, which can be found at HermanCain
Follow all of Dan’s work, including his series of Christian spiritual warfare novels, by liking his page on Facebook.