Lawmakers plot to oust Tuesday Group leader over health bill

[kstewart33]

Source: The Hill

Some members of the Tuesday Group of House Republican moderates are plotting to oust Co-Chairman Tom MacArthur (R-N.J.) from his post amid frustration that he negotiated a deal on the ObamaCare replacement bill with the conservative Freedom Caucus, two Tuesday Group members told The Hill on Wednesday.

The matter could come up at a Tuesday Group meeting Wednesday afternoon, sources said.

"There is dissension in the ranks," said one Tuesday Group member who backs MacArthur's ouster. "The Tuesday Group, to me, is a group of concerned, like-minded representatives who discuss issues, not negotiate positions on behalf of the group, but have meetings on Tuesday and have lunch and discuss the pending issues of the day."

During a recent closed-door meeting, Tuesday Group lawmakers warned MacArthur not to negotiate with Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) amid an impasse over the health bill; they were worried moderates would be blamed if a deal brought conservative holdouts on board the bill.

Read more: http://thehill.com/homenews/house/331785-lawmakers-plot-to-oust-tuesday-group-leader-over-health-bill

[Hortensis]

1. Seems to me the Tuesday Group is gaining prominence,

and power--predominantly as a result of the attempts of ultraconservatives to destroy the ACA. But also the fears finally raised among conservatives that they could lose SS, Medicare, Medicaid, the VA, healthy school lunches, and so on.

Although I've been angered that they've been called "moderates" in a conservative congress that moved solidly to the hard-to-extreme right over a decade ago, as if it were all only relative, perhaps it's not a bad thing for a "moderate conservative" faction to be trumpeted. The whole idea of moderate conservatism, and support for, may be reborn as a reaction to the party going far too far right. And some conservative congressmen may find restyling themselves as more moderate through their votes even...necessary.

[Wellstone ruled]

2. Oh Boy!

The so called moderates are eating their own. Going to be interesting tomorrow when Ryan calls for a vote.

[Hortensis]

3. We'll see, won't we? Let's hope they're actually defining

and committing. Ejecting someone who's weakening their cohesion and position might be the opposite of eating their own.

And even if they lose and the ACA is severely damaged, they will be able to use the inevitable anxiety, troubles, and ultimate outrage on the right. They would be "the ones" who fought for "the people," after all.

I suspect disaster to the ACA right now would be better than disaster carefully rolled out in stages over the next 7 years (as the GOP leaders want), voters trained to accept that it was unsustainable, and of course the Democrats are to blame for it all anyway.

Btw, I read that personal bankruptcies dropped by half after the ACA was (semi-) implemented.

[Wellstone ruled]

4. Waiting for Someone to Jump

ship and join the Dems.

[Hortensis]

5. Wouldn't that be a good signal! But that person might be

just as valuable, or more, if he or she could work with the Democrats as part of a newly empowered moderate conservative bloc. All along, people in both parties have been quietly working together when circumstances have allowed to get some legislation passed through mutual agreement. The GOP center needs to grow again. Has to if our republic is to survive.

[BumRushDaShow]

6. The media neglects to emphasize that MacArthur is a CO-chair

and one of the OTHER co-chairs, PA rep Charlie Dent, is very much opposed. I had posted the below article a couple days ago -

Moderate House GOP Leader Says No to Zombie Trumpcare

By Ed Kilgore
April 25, 2017 4:08 pm

In an unsurprising development that nonetheless represents a heavy shoe dropping, Representative Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania has made it known that he still doesn’t want anything to do with Zombie Trumpcare. Dent, a co-chair of the Tuesday Group (an assemblage of relatively moderate House Republicans), told the Washington Examiner’s Philip Klein that his opposition to Trumpcare extends to the new plan worked out between members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus and his fellow Tuesday Group co-chair Tom MacArthur. The changes from the original mainly involved provisions to let states move sicker folks into “high-risk pools” separate from the individual insurance markets everyone else is in, while offering less comprehensive health plans than Obamacare allowed, in an effort to lower premiums.

<...>

It’s an easy guess that Dent’s position is more representative of Tuesday Group opinion than MacArthur’s, and if so, that means even if most of the House Freedom Caucus are onboard with Zombie Trumpcare, Republicans probably won’t have the votes to get it out of the House, much less the Senate.

Where does that leave the GOP on repealing and replacing Obamacare? Dent thinks it’s okay to wait:

Dent complained that, “too much of the conversation has been driven by arbitrary deadlines,” referring to the initial push to pass the legislation last month, on the seventh anniversary of Obamacare becoming law, and the talk of trying to get something done in the first 100 days of the Trump presidency.

<...>

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/04/moderate-house-gop-leader-says-no-to-zombie-trumpcare.html

AARP has been running commercials here in the Philly media market asking constituents to "thank" reps Frank LoBiando (R-NJ) & Bryan Fitzpatrick (R-PA) for NOT supporting this bill. Both are in R swing districts.

I may be wrong but I don't think the Northeast Rs are as gung-ho as the Uptons of the world (and I never considered Upton any kind of "moderate&quot . PA alone has 13 Rs and probably 1/2 are in gerrymandered districts that either went for Hillary or were close.

[Hortensis]

7. Lol, with NY Mag and Vanity Fair hitting "Zombie Trumpcare,"

not just sites more given to this kind of thing, it's probably getting that much harder for other NE pols to support it as well.

I just wish all Republicans could know that their house reps included an exemption in their bill that would allow members congress and staff to keep the Obamacare goodies for themselves. Most of their "honest" media are keeping their mouths tight shut, but something must be getting through because I notice that Townhall.com felt a need to do a phony factcheck on this liberal "lie."

Just wish smarter pols weren't going to tuck that one in a drawer to slip it through some other time.

[BumRushDaShow]

8. One of the local stations here in Philly did a whip count

and so far found that 6 Philly-metro Rs in PA & NJ (4 PA, 2 NJ) were going to vote "no".

Would need something like 16 - 17 more "nos" from Rs around the country to kill it.

MacArthur claimed that he would "fix" the congressional exemption and remove it. Yeah right.

[Hortensis]

10. Personally, I'd like them to do their worst ASAP.

It'll take some while for more and more deniers to come to realize what "worst" is. Ryan's not the brain some imagine, but he really, really wants to slip this to people in stages, when he can arrange for appropriate distractions.

all right, and I think that's the first time I've used that one. But on the plus side, it's working for us now.

[BumRushDaShow]

11. This is Ryan's ego vote

But as a discussion point on Joe Madison's show this morning, Madison argued (which I agreed) that he understood the side that says - "let it pass and let people see what suffering is"... But then the other side's argument is "why let it get that far and have innocent people suffer too?" There are probably hundreds of thousands sitting in hospitals, nursing homes, rehab facilities, or being cared for at home right now who can't fight it and who could possibly die. If it can be stopped in its tracks now, then that should be the fight.

[Hortensis]

12. I don't believe it CAN be stopped in its tracks now, though.

Take a look at this. The House Republicans are far more conservative now -- ultraconservative --than they ever were before. The graph for senate Republicans shows them now only much more conservative than ever before in history.

?w=630&h=337

A graph showing the Republican electorate compared to the people supposedly representing them shows much less than half overlap between the two groups. Only the most conservative voters overlap their least extreme "representatives." Most conservatives are being betrayed by the GOP.

That's because that "missile launch" on the right side is mostly being driven by the machinations of some ultraconservative members of the 0.01%, who intend to do away with all government programs that require them to pay taxes and all regulations that impede their "freedom."

A majority of the so-called moderate and mainstream conservatives in congress merely believe in dismantling some programs entirely and big cuts to those allowed to remain. Which those might be is unclear. The GOP has been fighting to repeal Social Security since its inception. The extreme right wing, of course, is committed to destroying them all.

The only question for all of them is how to accomplish their goals, keep power, and make it stick for many decades to come.

Democrats can't stop them in their tracks alone. They have both houses of Congress and the presidency, most state governments, and strength if not a majority in SCOTUS. We need the help of the right to defeat this dreadful plan completely and restore progressive government. So let the right finally see what is happening as soon as possible.

[BumRushDaShow]

13. In this case, the "GOP moderates"

are those who were barely elected in gerrymandered districts that previously had Democratic representatives... and we have a bunch like that here in PA. They are also in Districts that went for Hillary this last go-around. These are the folks people are targeting and in states like mine that have districts like this, it is imperative that we try to get control of either or both chambers of the state legislatures and/or the governorships so that we have some say or control of the 2020 census redistricting process to get rid of the gerrymandering!

[duncang]

9. Since they don't need all of the Tuesday group votes

I wonder how MacArthur figured out who was going to willingly tie a albatross around their neck and vote for it?