{"id":22976,"date":"2017-07-09T13:04:39","date_gmt":"2017-07-09T13:04:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=22976"},"modified":"2017-07-09T13:04:39","modified_gmt":"2017-07-09T13:04:39","slug":"work-with-dems-to-fix-aca-wow-what-a-concept","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=22976","title":{"rendered":"Work with Dems to fix ACA? Wow, what a concept!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/n-AFFORDABLE-CARE-ACT-628x314.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-19173\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/n-AFFORDABLE-CARE-ACT-628x314-300x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/n-AFFORDABLE-CARE-ACT-628x314-300x150.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/n-AFFORDABLE-CARE-ACT-628x314.jpg 628w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Am I hearing things or did I actually hear U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell say he might be willing to work with Senate Democrats to improve the Affordable Care Act?<\/p>\n<p>Yep, I think I heard the Kentucky Republican say such a thing.<\/p>\n<p>What a friggin&#8217; concept, Mr. Majority Leader. Who&#8217;da thunk it?<\/p>\n<p>Senate Republicans cannot muster enough votes among themselves to repeal the ACA and replace it with the abomination they cobbled together. Donald J. Trump called the House of Representatives&#8217; version of ACA replacement the greatest thing since pockets on shirts, then the president called it &#8220;mean.&#8221; He wanted the Senate GOP to come up with a bill with &#8220;heart.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It didn&#8217;t. The Congressional Budget Office &#8212; that non-partisan agency &#8212; issued its &#8220;score&#8221; on the Senate bill and found out that 22 million Americans would lose their health insurance over the next decade. That&#8217;s pretty mean, too, right? Yes.<\/p>\n<p>GOP moderates hate the Senate bill, as do GOP conservatives, although for different reasons. Senate Republicans can afford to lose only two of their votes; at last count, about 10 or 12 of them dislike the bill that&#8217;s on the table.<\/p>\n<p>What&#8217;s the alternative? McConnell is signaling that the ACA might stand, but that his Republican caucus can work with Democrats to tweak and tinker with what they dislike about the ACA.<\/p>\n<p>My memory now reminds me that President Barack Obama said on numerous occasions during his time in office something like this: <em>I have no deep pride of authorship of the ACA. If Republicans can find a way to improve it, to make it better, then I&#8217;m all in!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Didn&#8217;t the former president say something like that? Yes, I believe he did.<\/p>\n<p>So, here we are. After all the futile votes to repeal the ACA in the GOP-controlled Congress, all the declarations that the ACA was ruining the lives of Americans and that it is failing, the Republicans in both congressional chambers cannot agree on a plan to replace it.<\/p>\n<p>So, let&#8217;s fix what&#8217;s wrong with it.<\/p>\n<p>Time to get busy, ladies and gents.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Am I hearing things or did I actually hear U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell say he might be willing to work with Senate Democrats to improve the Affordable Care Act? Yep, I think I heard the Kentucky Republican say such a thing. What a friggin&#8217; concept, Mr. Majority Leader. Who&#8217;da thunk it? Senate Republicans &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=22976\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Work with Dems to fix ACA? Wow, what a concept!<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[131,540,2179,3099,3376,4209],"class_list":["post-22976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-medical-news","tag-aca","tag-barack-obama","tag-house-gop","tag-mitch-mcconnell","tag-obamacare","tag-senate-gop"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22976"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22976\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22977,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22976\/revisions\/22977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}