WAKE UP, REPUBLICANS! DEMOCRATS ARE SETTING AN AMBUSH!
The Republicans are fighting to help the Democrats. They don’t know it, but the Republicans are gleefully walking into an ambush and somebody in the GOP leadership has got to sound the alarm before it’s too late.
Last month, House Republican Rep. Fred Upton proposed a bill that would allegedly fix the Obamacare nightmare where millions of Americans have been kicked off of their insurance, despite President Obama’s assurances to the contrary. Upton’s plan calls for allowing insurers to offer customers their old plans for another year so long as the customers had that insurance coverage as of January 1st of this year.
Sounds good, right? As in all ambushes, the field ahead looks clear and worry-free.
The problem is that this provides significant benefit for House and Senate Democrats by playing off of Republican efforts.
Upton’s bill, brought to the floor on Friday, provides no real “teeth” in mandating that insurers have to offer the plans to those who have been dropped. Millions have received cancellation notices and some have moved on to other insurance plans. By contrast, Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu’s bill in the Senate is a stronger bill that will gain the support of Senate Democrats. It allows insurers to offer the old plans with the caveat that they must explain the differences between the old plan and those available under Obamacare.
So, here’s the trap:
House Republicans will support Upton’s bill and vulnerable House Democrats who spent years ramming Obamacare down our throats will vote for Upton’s bill, too. They will loudly and proudly proclaim that they are taking a firm stand against President Obama’s “administrative fix” for Obamacare and are pushing a “legislative fix.” They will posture for cameras and pretend that they are mavericks, doing what is right for the American people. They will showcase their bipartisanship and, by extension, bolster the claim that they are willing to work with the Republicans, if only the Republicans were as willing to play nice.
Most importantly, they will talk a lot about the American people and how they deserve to keep their old plans and hope that Americans forget that it was these Democrats who rammed this God-awful legislation down our throats in the first place. The liberal mainstream media will bolster that narrative, calling the move “brave” for having broken with President Obama on the issue.
It will play well for vulnerable Democrats and give them much-needed cover from the political fallout being created by the Obamacare disaster.
However, the bill is going nowhere and the Democrats know it. When it gets to the Senate, it will either be dropped in favor of Sen. Landrieu’s bill or, if it does get through, the President will veto Upton’s bill as he has said he would. Obama claimed that he would veto it because Upton’s bill, “threatens the health security of hard working, middle class families.”
Either way, the vulnerable Democrats who are in panic mode for having their name affixed to Obamacare, the legislative Titanic, will be able to tell their constituents that they tried to piece together a bipartisan fix for the American people.
The GOP needs to wake up and stop the babe-in-the-woods routine; America is bitterly divided and Democrats are out for blood. This is a streetfight and if the Republicans aren’t willing to play good defense, they are going to get clobbered.
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