Tag Archives: Capitol Hill

medical news

Is bipartisanship making a comeback in the Senate?

Oh, I do hope my ears and eyes aren’t deceiving me.

I’ve heard during the past day or so that the failure of the Republican-authored bill to replace the Affordable Care Act has produced a remarkable event.

It is that Republican U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Democratic U.S. Sen. Patty Murray of Washington are going to actually talk to each other about how they might find a path toward improving the ACA.

Alexander chairs the Senate Health Committee and is committed to working with Murray to commence bipartisan hearings next month that would fix some elements of the existing health care law.

I do believe this is how effective government is designed to work.

The Senate Republican caucus sought to craft an ACA replacement without any Democratic help. The House of Representatives did approve its version of an ACA replacement, also without Democratic input or votes. It fell to the Senate to complete the job. The Senate failed when they lost three GOP senators, killing the totally partisan measure.

Now the Senate is blundering its way toward a compromise solution. Sens. Alexander and Murray are leading the way.

They’re both Capitol Hill veterans. They’ve been around long enough to know how the place can actually work. Alexander and Murray aren’t alone in that knowledge, to be sure.

It well might be time for Republican congressional leaders — in both legislative chambers — to accept that the ACA is the law of the land and that it’s likely to remain the law of the land.

Many of us out here in the heartland have noted that the ACA is far from perfect. Its chief proponent, former President Obama, has implored Republicans to find a bipartisan solution to repair the law. GOP lawmakers, though, have been hung up on repealing the ACA.

A one-party solution hasn’t worked out for the Republicans.

There now appears some momentum building for a return to the proven strategy of working together — with both parties sitting at the same table — to find some common ground.

That’s how you legislate.

International news, national news, political news

Open wide, Mr. President, and swallow this bill

Congress has just force-fed Donald J. Trump a heaping helping of his least-favorite veggie, chased down with a bitter concoction of political reality.

The president signed a bill that imposes tough new sanctions on Russia. He doesn’t like the bill. He signed it anyway, then took a series of shots at Congress for — as the president implied — undermining executive authority to conduct foreign policy.

Poor guy. What lawmakers have done is hold him more accountable for the way he deals with Russia, the nation that meddled in our 2016 presidential election.

Trump continues to remain virtually silent on the meddling matter. He has said utterly nothing in public about the harsh retaliation that Vladimir Putin recently took in response to the sanctions bill; the Russian president ordered the expulsion of 755 U.S. diplomats and foreign service staffers. Trump’s reaction? Silence, nothing.

So now we have imposed more sanctions on Russia. The president needs congressional authority to lighten them, which gets under Trump’s paper-thin skin.

He lashed out at Congress for its inability to approve a bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act and said he, alone, is able to negotiate better deals with foreign powers than those nincompoops on Capitol Hill.

Meanwhile, the probe into Russia’s meddling continues. The president needs to let that investigation proceed full throttle. If it produces nothing, then Donald Trump can crow himself hoarse. If it comes up with something, um, incriminating, then he has to deal with whatever consequences fall into his lap.

If the president isn’t going to speak out on behalf of our electoral system, then it behooves Congress to articulate a nation’s outrage. That is what lawmakers have done with this sanctions bill — and they have forced it down the president’s throat. Good for them!

national news, political news

Listen to this senator

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1YpvX0dEHM

This video lasts 4 minutes and 34 seconds. It is part of a speech that U.S. Sen. John McCain delivered in the midst of an impassioned debate on the Senate floor about whether to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

McCain came back to Capitol Hill to cast a decisive vote against repeal and replacement of the ACA, effectively killing the Republican effort to affect one-sixth of the U.S. economy.

McCain’s speech, though, deals mostly with the political process that has rendered the Senate virtually impotent. The body has become infected with a win-at-any-cost mentality that McCain says strips the Senate of the title of being “the world’s greatest deliberative body.”

McCain — who’s battling brain cancer — took responsibility for being part of the problem. He would go on later to call for a return to “regular order.” He wants the Senate — and I presume the House of Representatives, too — to return to process that encourages compromise and cooperation among lawmakers of both political parties.

It’s not that way now. The word “compromise” has become an epithet. Sen. McCain is right to call for a return to the old way of doing things on Capitol Hill. It’s the only way out of the morass that has engulfed the nation’s legislative branch of government.

Listen to this snippet. It speaks volumes about a brave and heroic American. Our political system needs many more just like him.

national news, political news

Hold on, Rep. Waters!

Donald John Trump Sr. isn’t the only American politician who needs to bind up his hands to keep him from abusing his Twitter account.

U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters? I’m talking about you!

The California Democrat is one of the president’s most vocal and consistent critics. She fired off a tweet that said Vice President Pence already is planning his inauguration in anticipation of Trump’s impeachment and conviction of assorted “high crimes and misdemeanors.” She said former White House press flack Sean Spicer and ex-chief of staff Reince Priebus will “lead the transition.”

Read my lips here: I take a back seat to no one in my disdain for this president and the way he has conducted himself. But impeachment is not even close to occurring.

Waters has been around Capitol Hill for a long time. I am going to presume she does an adequate job representing her California congressional district, given that she’s been re-elected numerous times since her first election to Congress in 1990.

She tends to make a national name for herself, though, by popping off during heated political debates. It’s getting pretty damn hot in Washington these days, as I believe we all can attest.

Waters isn’t the first anti-Trumpkin to talk openly about impeachment. Fellow Democratic U.S. Rep. Al Green of Texas has filed articles of impeachment, but it isn’t going anywhere — at least not yet.

But this business of using Twitter as a platform to make these kinds goofy political pronouncements is beginning to annoy many of us. You may count me as among the annoyed.

political news

Yep, Mitch, it’s time to ‘move on’

Mitch McConnell sounds like a man who has cried “Uncle!” in his long-running effort to toss out a law that is linked to a man he once vowed he would make a “one-term president.”

The U.S. Senate majority leader didn’t succeed in limiting former President Obama to a single term; nor did he succeed in repealing his signature piece of domestic legislation, the Affordable Care Act.

It’s time to “move on,” he said this week after the latest — and most dramatic — failure to repeal the ACA.

Yes, Mr. Leader, it is time. Sure, you now have a chance to tinker with the ACA, to improve it. The Senate’s top Republican can work with Democrats — for a change! — in finding some common ground.

But the task of legislating, which McConnell knows as well as any one in the Senate, involves lots of complicated things. It involves building and rebuilding relationships with your colleagues from the “other party.” It means you have to deal with myriad crises that crop up around the world without a moment’s notice; and brother, we have a lot of ’em, right, Mitch?

It also means that the leader also has constituents back home in Kentucky who need matters dealt with that concern only them and only their state. I am going to presume that McConnell has a Senate staff that is tasked with tending to those needs on his behalf.

The Battle of the Affordable Care Act is over, Mitch. You lost. The other side held together.

The Senate can fix what’s wrong with the ACA, keep its name, and deal forthrightly with a heaping plate of issues that need its attention.

Oh, yes. We also have that “Russia Thing” that needs our attention.

medical news, national news, political news

You’re up, congressional Democrats

Congressional Democrats — in both chambers of Capitol Hill’s legislative body — now have a chance to make good on where congressional Republicans have face-planted.

The GOP wanted to replace the Affordable Care Act. They wanted first to repeal the law, then substitute something else in its place. They just couldn’t cobble together a law that pleased everyone within their caucus, let alone the rest of this vast country.

They have cratered. Their repeal and replace effort is done. Gone. Kaput. Toast.

What’s left? Oh, wait! They can work with congressional Democrats. They can figure out a way to make changes to the ACA, if only congressional Republicans can stomach the idea of maintaining something with Barack H. Obama’s name on it.

In order, though, for Republicans to reach across the aisle, their legislative colleagues — Democrats, I must add — need to offer a starting point.

Suppose it comes to a repair and revamp effort on the ACA, what might the Democrats offer as their chief sticking point?

Are premiums too high? Do Americans have enough choices of doctors? Are there ways to actually make the ACA more, um, affordable for every American who applies for insurance under the government plan?

Democrats have said they are willing to work with Republicans to improve the ACA. To get the discussion started, though, we need to hear from Democratic political leadership on where they intend to start.

We’ve hearing a lot of yapping and yammering from Republicans — for too long, if you were to ask my opinion. Now it’s time for Democrats to take the stage.

medical news, national news, political news

Stop telling the lie about ACA ‘failure,’ Mr. Leader

I am not going to label U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell a liar, even though he’s just told another whopper about the Affordable Care Act.

He has called it a “failure.” He now plans to ask his Senate colleagues to repeal it and then seek to pass a replacement for it separately to smooth the “transition” from one health insurance plan to another.

“Regretfully, it is now apparent that the effort to repeal and immediately replace the failure of Obamacare will not be successful,” McConnell said.

Good bleeping luck with that, Mr. Leader.

The ACA is not failing. It is stabilizing, according to medical and insurance studies. Millions more American have health insurance coverage now than they did before the ACA was enacted in 2010.

Still, Republicans in Congress want to wipe out Barack Obama’s signature domestic legislation. It doesn’t matter now whether they can have a replacement bill in place. They want the ACA gone.

McConnell’s new strategy came to light after two more Senate Republicans, Mike Lee of Utah and Jerry Moran of Kansas, signaled their opposition to the GOP monstrosity that came forward just before the Fourth of July recess. Senators went home and got a bellyful from their constituents about how much they hate the GOP plan. Moreover, an increasing number of Americans are on board with the ACA; they don’t want it trifled with.

Not one to listen to reason, Leader McConnell is going to try to get the Senate to toss the ACA into the crapper and then hope the Senate and the House of Representatives can cobble together a replacement.

Forgive me for repeating myself: Why not summon Democrats to the table, too, to work out a bipartisan repair of what you think is so terrible about the Affordable Care Act?

entertainment news

D’oh! There’s also Al Franken

I have committed an error of omission.

In a previous blog post noting the possible entry of two entertainer/political novices into politics, I forgot to mention one of the more notable former entertainers who’s actually making a name for himself on Capitol Hill.

Al (Stuart Smalley) Franken has served in the U.S. Senate from Minnesota and has become arguably one of the upper congressional chamber’s most eloquent progressive voices

Franken was elected initially in 2008, defeating Republican Sen. Norm Coleman.

Franken’s original claim to fame? He was a comedy writer for “Saturday Night Live” and then assumed the character “Stuart Smalley,” the guy with that strange sense of self-awareness.

He’s also written some political books and was a radio personality on Air America, the left-wing broadcasting network; he quit Air America to run for the Senate.

Has he performed well in the Senate? In my view … yes! Then again, I’m aligned with him politically.

I suppose Sen. Franken can be a positive example of how someone who’s never run for or held public office can rise to the occasion. Franken has done so.

I regret omitting him in that previous blog post. My bad, man.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2017/07/kid-rock-for-senate-oh-my/

 

medical news

What do those health care experts know?

Darn those silly ol’ health care experts who keep coming up with evidence that contradicts Republican politicians’ dire predictions about the Affordable Care Act.

The latest report comes from the Kaiser Family Foundation — hardly a group known for its radical left-wing ideology. It says the ACA is “stabilizing” in markets across the country. That it’s not “collapsing” as GOP politicians keep insisting.

Oh, yeah. These are the same GOP pols who want to toss out the ACA and replace it with an abomination that would toss 22 million Americans off the ranks of the insured over the next 10 years.

The foundation reports: “Early results from 2017 suggest the individual market is stabilizing and insurers in this market are regaining profitability,” the study finds. “Insurer financial results show no sign of a market collapse.”

So, which is it? Is the ACA in a death spiral or is it beginning to do the job that it was intended to do, which is provide health insurance to Americans who previously couldn’t afford to have it?

Stable or not?

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell is signaling an apparent willingness to work with Senate Democrats to repair what’s wrong with the ACA if the GOP cannot push its repeal legislation over the finish line. It doesn’t look too good for Republicans at the moment.

President Obama declared repeatedly his willingness to mend the ACA if Republicans could find ways to improve it. Current congressional Democratic leaders are saying much the same thing. So far, GOP leaders are having none of it.

The Kaiser Family Foundation has given ACA supporters a glimmer of hope that sanity might be restored to this debate. We’ll have to wait, though, for the GOP politicians’ response that will find ways to punch holes in the report from the folks who examine these issues for a living.

I’m going to stick with the medical experts on this one.

national news

Call this guy a promise-breaker

That darn Markwayne Mullin. He said he’d serve just three terms in the U.S. House of Representatives and then bow out.

So, what does the Oklahoma Republican do? He reneges on his pledge. He’s going to run for a fourth term. Term limits? Who needs ’em, right Rep. Mullin?

Actually, since I don’t believe in mandated term limits, I’m not all that worked up about Mullin’s decision to try once again to be elected to his House seat.

There’s a certain irony, though, attached to this announcement.

One is that Mullin made a foolish pledge in the first place. He says he was so frustrated serving in Congress during the Barack Obama administration that he now wants to serve during the time Donald Trump is president. He thinks he can get more done while Trump is president.

The foolishness of the pledge reminds me of how many of the 1994 Contract With America class of congressmen and women promised to serve a limited number of terms. Some of them kept that pledge, others took it back. I think of former Rep. George Nethercutt of Washington state, who defeated House Speaker Tom Foley in arguably the biggest upset of the 1994 election. Nethercutt vowed to serve three terms and then he pulled it back. He eventually gave up his House seat to run unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate from Washington; his broken promise became an issue and he lost that campaign.

U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry, from right here in the Texas Panhandle, also was elected that year. He has voted in favor of proposed constitutional amendments limiting lawmakers’ terms. He just never made the pledge for himself. He’s still in office — 22 years later!

Back to Markwayne Mullin. This clown also declared during a town hall meeting earlier this year that the public doesn’t pay his salary. Huh? Yep. He said he pays his own way to serve in Congress.

Umm. No, young man. Not true! The public pays your salary, your office staff’s salary, and all the perks associated with your office. Why, even I have a stake in your salary, even though I am not one of your constituents.

So, my hunch is that the voters of his Oklahoma congressional district just might invoke their version of term limits — by kicking his rear end out of office next year.

“We understand that people are going to be upset. And we get that. We understand it,” Mullin said. “I’m not hiding from that. Because we did say we were going to serve six years.”

There might be a lesson here. Which is that certain campaign promises are not to be treated like something you can just toss out when you get a change of heart.