The Morning Joe crew tried to polish the turd that is Republican's efforts to grapple with healthcare.
They just couldn't.
The current GOP healthcare bill gives states the option to opt out of covering pre-existing conditions if there is access to a high-risk pool.
That means that anyone who has ever had any health condition can be charged an exorbitant amount for health insurance or move to a state that isn't stupid that way. And then the high-risk pool will go bankrupt anyway. Oops.
Hey, Obama! I think we've found a shortcut to turning those state legislatures from red to blue!
John Heilemann doesn't think they'll ever have the votes to get it through the House because the Freedom Caucus doesn't want pre-existing conditions in the bill. "A bill that is conservative enough to get the Freedom Caucus, alienates a bunch of people in the middle [of the Republican Party]."
JOHN HEILEMANN: ..one of the realities in Washington that I kept hearing on Capitol Hill last week, because I was there all week. was there are a lot of House members who now were just looking at the saying you know what we may not like Obamacare but the politics of this are so ruinous that if we end up passing something whatever it is that could get through this body would destroy a lot of political careers for Republicans who are more in the moderate or just in the middle of the Republican caucus. I just don't know that there's a bill that will ever get
done that is tenable politically for enough Republicans that it could actually get through.
It's adorably ironic that there's a large number of House members who got INTO Congress in 2010 by "destroying the careers" of Democrats who had the vision to cover pre-existing conditions. And now we're supposed to wring our hankies for the House GOP who is too afraid of their constituents to vote their "conscience"?
Mike Barnicle points out that it's difficult to follow the president semantically (heh).
MARK HALPERIN: Let's say they get to the situation again where they can't even have a vote? What do they do then? They acknowledge that they're never going to ever feel the Affordable Care Act that would depress the base the Republican Party and leave them moving on to tax reform with zero momentum, so they're in a very tough spot now no matter what happens?
Halperin adds that the Republican's seven years of promises to repeal Obamacare are "too big to fail." Maybe they just need to acknowledge that they were lying, that Obamacare in practice is far better than the imaginary monster they made it out to be, and move on. Their constituents might be relieved.
