SENATE DEMOCRATS ARE TAKING A MAJOR GAMBLE

…This is what’s happening in DC today

 

GOP HEALTH CARE PROGRAM: Let's start by dropping 23 million Americans.

 

The American health care system is apparently going to be decided over the next two weeks. As it looks today, tens of millions of Americans will lose their health care coverage.  It is all on the line and with the Republicans holding all the controls, all we can do is watch it all go down the drain.

 

There was a time when instead of trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act, they could have said, “With all those millions that signed up for health care coverage, why don’t we make the necessary changes to fix it?”

 

But no, instead of doing something to help Americans in need, their only answer today is to take healthcare away and just watch these Americans die.  As of today, it is said that with the House health care bill or the “Secret GOP Senate bill, in either case, 23 million Americans will still lose their health care coverage.  And the majority of those that will be dropped off the insurance rolls, are those that are the most in need.

 

The Dems are going to go through moves to slow the GOP’s efforts, but below is shown as to what would need to happen in order to make a difference, and you will see that the chances of that happening are between slim and none.

 

The only way Democrats could win in the end would be if three or more Republican senators decided to vote “No” on their party’s bill. Any strategy has to work starting under those conditions.

 

Republicans have a 52-48 majority in the Senate. If three of them would object, the bill would die. But that would mean that 3 Republican senators would have to go against their party, and the 49 other Republican Senators, plus their GOP vice president.  There are only about a half-dozen senators who could possibly be that politically suicidal.  There are a couple of moderates like Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and a few senators from states where the citizenry has benefited hugely from the ACA, particularly its expansion of Medicaid. Those include Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Jeff Flake of Arizona, and a couple others. Democratic groups are already running TV ads targeted at those senators.

 

But here’s is what most likely would need to happen to make all that happen:

 

The Senate Dems did hold a “talkathon” in the senate that stretched until midnight.  During this event, the Democratic senators railed against the bill on the Senate floor.

“These are merely the first steps we will take in order to shine a light on this shameful Trumpcare bill and reveal to the public, the GOP’s true intentions: to give the uber-wealthy a tax break while making middle class Americans pay more for less health care coverage,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement. “If Republicans won’t relent and debate their health care bill in the open for the American people to see, then they shouldn’t expect business as usual in the Senate.”

 

·       Democrats must now shut down all or part of the Senate’s business in protest of the current secrecy of the senate bill and the speed with which the GOP bill is moving it through.

 

·       If the shutdown works, the shutdown must also generate a lot of media coverage.

 

·       That coverage must also be seen by all those folks back home in the Red states.

 

·       With the bill becoming more controversial, the CBO must then release a brutal score of the bill (which is expected), which will need to get even more media coverage.

 

·       Just as it did with the House bill, the attention to the opposition to the bill must dramatically increase.

 

·       Citizens in the home states of the persuadable Republican senators must take action by holding protests, and by calling their senators’ offices in significantly larger numbers than they are today.

 

·       The senators must then decide that the bill is just too toxic to support and then they back away from it.

 

The only way this will work is if the Dems can get to the Republican senator’s constituents. 

 

Senate Republicans truly only fear one thing: the displeasure of their constituents.

 

If the senators aren’t feeling pressure from their constituents, they’ll think they can get away with passing this bill and they won’t be punished for passing it. So the delaying tactics that the Democrats employ are only useful if they generate the proper attention and opposition from the American public.

The only good news for Democrats is that like the House bill, the Senate bill is a true abomination. That’s why Republicans are working so hard to keep it secret and to vote on it as fast as possible: they know that if the public gets a good look at it, they’ll be horrified.

 

If Democrats can force it into the light, they have a chance to defeat it. But it will all come down to the question of how threatened just a few Republican senators feel.

 

As I said, this is a major gamble for the Dems.

 

Copyright G.Ater  2017