What Next for Health-Care Reform? Possible Strategies for the GOP

"Republicans need to develop conservative policies that can win popular support."

Fred Bauer at NR  "The death of the American Health Care Act has been greatly exaggerated — not because it is likely to be revived (at least in its current form) but because it might never have really been alive in the first place. 

"Many of the provisions of the bill were unlikely to survive contact with the Senate, and there was a very strong chance that the bill that was released from a House–Senate conference would radically differ from the AHCA. Perhaps realizing the limits of the AHCA, some defenders of the AHCA supported the measure principally as a way of getting to conference. However, there is no reason to believe that the tensions that pulled down the AHCA on Friday would not similarly undo the resulting House–Senate conference bill. Some Republicans would still be upset that the conference bill was not a full repeal of the Affordable Care Act, and moderates (along with some populists) would be pulled into a tug-of-war with budget-cutters over the size of Medicaid cuts. 

"Matthew Continetti has observed that the American Health Care Act allowed procedure to dictate policy. . . " (Below)

How Washington Handed Trump His First Defeat  "President Trump and his advisers ought to study the collapse of the American Health Care Act. It's a case study in how Beltway institutions—the so-called Swamp Trump pledged to drain—can herd a president and his party toward unpopular legislation and political defeat." . . .

Sadly, Obama had skilled political advisers to keep him from making "rookie mistakes" on the domestic front.  On foreign policy, it was a far different story but what Democrat cared about that and what Obama voter had a clue?  TD

http://comicallyincorrect.com/

Bernie Sanders to Sponsor Single-Payer Healthcare Bill  . . . " 'Let us do, among other things, a public option. Let us give people in every state in this country a public option from which they can choose. Let's talk about lowering the age of Medicare eligibility from 65 to 55. Let's deal with the greed of the pharmaceutical industry," he said on CNN.

"The senator acknowledged that such a bill would face political difficulties—Democrats didn't endorse single-payer even when they had a Congressional majority—but said such a streamlined system would address healthcare problems felt on both sides of the political aisle." . . .