Inside the last minute of zero hour, Republicans tap out and cry "UNCLE!" on Obama care repleal!!

  By Jack Warner

The fifteen million Americans that got insurance they didn't have before, and the ten million more that would have been kicked off plans, should be giving the sigh of relief heard round the world.

What a thrill it was when watching C-Span this afternoon headed for that 3:30 vote when I saw someone walk to the speaker dais and hand a note to the Pro tempore at 2:29 and I realized they were pulling the bill and Republicans were spared being forced to vote and having an opponent run against that vote no matter which way it went. Their greatest fears would have been Republican primary challengers. Now they get to crawl back in there dark dank cave or holes in the ground waiting until Trump's "no amount of money is enough money" greedmongers call them out again to shill a "Tax Reform" bill. I've heard that in  some obscure ancient language "Tax" means "New" and "reform" means "Gulfstream G600" (New York to Paris at 51,000 feet at Mach 0.90, aka 700mph). 

They were a bunch of cowards. (I held back on the word pussies). When LBJ needed votes for the Civil Rights act in 1964 he got democrats to vote for it because it was right. They came there to do something right and some of them new full well it would  end their congressional careers. In fact we lost the south and never won it back. 

When Bill Clinton needed votes to get the tax bill passed in 1963 that ended up creating a balanced budget many in the house knew it meant certain defeat in their next run. But at least they have that act of bravery in their histories. 

Those were profiles in courage. 

 The "all hat no cattle" Republicans don't have a President they can believe in and weren't about to have their seats go down in flames to protect the blustering bloviated Mussolini lite president we now have. 

The last hours of speeches by the Democrats were passionate. I'll never forget the fire in their bellies. Let those that live in Freedom Caucus districts (tea party) let it sink in that the cruelty of their insistence on total repeal kept it from getting passed.

I watched the rules committee last night as new things kept showing up in the bill while Dems waited to testify. Really, they had to keep their cell phones on so staff could feed them what was going on behind closed doors to the actual bill. I was shocked when the all war all the time, hero worshiping anyone within a country mile of a soldier, party striped the subsidies from ex-military personnel that was enabling them to buy private insurance instead of going to the VA!!

Next, in an evilgazm they must have been storing up for years, was stripping "essential services" as a requirement for all policies.  And on an on all night and through the morning. The bill in the end with the elimination of the requirement to provide essential services would have allowed companies to sell insurance policies that were insurance in name only. The scam artists were salivating. No requirements to offer ambulance services, emergency room coverage,  hospital coverage, outpatient coverage, being a woman becomes a preexisting condition. Get pregnant? No screening. Give birth, the hospital stay not covered. no cancer screens no to preventive care no drug treatment. If you think I'm making this up go to c span and watch the last hour of the floor debate.

The Republican Party is evidently good at unifying against something but not for being for something.

They lost this besides having a 44 vote advantage, the largest since 1928. 

If anyone wonders why John Boehner resigned as speaker in Oct 2015, then resigned from Congress 2 days later here you have it in spades. I've been shouting from the rooftops for years that the tea party is the root of all evil concerning the failure of congress to do the peoples work. But I guess I just don't have the right tone of voice for it. They are the tail that has been waging the dog. And thy are rabid. The citizens of those districts need to go to the doctor, take those shots before they too start foaming at the mouth.

When the ACA was passed I just happened to be flipping past C-Span and stopped and watched the vote! This time the way they were jamming this stuff down people throat so fast I've not been able to turn C-span off for 2 days now. Fortunately, C-Span is out of reach and self-funding as a nonprofit so it will be around and there's never been a time since Watergate that gives more reason to watch.

And yet I can't celebrate because we didn't do something good, we just prevented the doing of something bad. The rabid dogs of the Tea Party continue to try to use government to destroy government.

I will say one thing to Pat Tiberi, who made some the hateful fact free speeches on the House floor over the last 6 years and voted for every repeal bill,  and his staffer Andy I commonly talked to... IN YOUR FACE!

Paul Ryan was right about one thing. Doing it now and doing it fast was the only way they would ever get it done. This will not be back. It needs some changes but this or something like it is here to stay.

Republican through control of the purse combined with the underhandedness of big insurers will undermine Obama care and there are ways they can make it collapse so we can't take our eye of this for a second.

Remember, Obama care is actually Romney care. The bill gave millions of new customers to insurance companies. And those companies couldn't go all in with the Republicans passing another repeal bill every couple of weeks. Now they are going to have to deal with making it work because repeal will never happen again. In fact since there's no chance Trump wins again (without going all Putin on us and start jailing and killing his opponents) the rebound from this could be Medicare for all. The only thing that makes sense anymore because this bill has proven the private market can't be entrusted with human lives, something the rest of the industrial world learned long ago.

But wall street has bilked so much of what the middle class has left you can be sure Trumps tax plan will move even more of the tax load away from the investor class because they just lost a huge tax break.

Then they'll be coming for Medicaid, the Medicare and then because it's the only cash the can bilk out of retiring boomers, they'll try to "privatize" social security. Roads and bridges to be built by people that will make you pay to use them, which also won't pass and we descend further toward third world status.

This will have other repercussions too. Trump can put Wall money in the budget but the President doesn't make the budge the House does. Imagine now when people see the new tax plan ripping them off and someone in congress put's the wall money in the budget. The bill itself will only have a few Republican and no Democratic names on it. The wall will be hung around the neck of the sponsors and if they don't put it in some poor schmuck of a congressman is actually going have to get up and offer it as an amendment... lmao.

The real credit for defeating this bill belongs to the millions of people who after decades of apathy called their representatives and showed up at those town hall meetings and gave hell to their representatives. And where did we learn there tactics? From tax exempt organizations like TeaParty Patriots, Freedom Works and Americans for prosperity. We used their playbook.