Health Care, and brick walls

So the Senate has punted on another attempt to pass a health care bill, on a side note, the more I think about it the more brilliant it seems Obama was pushing for the AHCA when he did, including his expending of political capital even though it may gave cost the party in the midterms, hell all the way up until now. By getting it done as quickly as he could, he ensured that it was not going to go away for six years at least, assuming, correctly in this case that he would win a second term, and that appears to have been just enough time for Americans to decide they mostly liked being able to pay for medical care when they are sick. I think if he somehow managed to pass it in his second term we would be having a very different conversation right now.

Anyway, the fight has played out so far pretty much as I had predicted, the bills being presented are neither evil enough for the Tea Party assholes and Libertarians, and are simultaneously too evil for the so-called Moderates in the party, and any concessions to one faction are inherently unappealing to the other.

At this point I am not sure why they keep trying, surely the scared turtle looking motherfucker who claims to run things can see that it isn't passing? Right now all it seems to be doing is showing how much power the Democrats still have while at the same time proving how inept the GOP is at actually doing anything, sure they are out of practice after eight years of attempting to sit on their hands, but come on. Really after the first attempt died they should have said screw it and moved on to trying to pass a budget or infrastructure bill, picking up health care in the fall when they maybe had a win under their belt and some experience working together. But they keep slamming their heads into a wall, and budget reconciliation will not be a usable tactic forever so the wall is only gonna get higher.

Yes there are those who claim that this is only a distraction from their true agenda, to those people I say "pfftt". Outside of confirmation votes, which mostly can't be filibustered, the Senate and House have accomplished very little, the harm happening has been almost exclusively due to actions of the executive branch in the form of executive orders and departmental guidance, neither of which rely on the other branches of government for anything, well okay I mean the Supreme Court steps in occasionally but that is it.

If The Toddler is anything he is stubborn, he isn't going to be influenced by protests or letters or whatever, Senators and members of the House on the other hand are significantly more vulnerable, or at least acknowledge they have vulnerabilities anyway. He'll do what he wants, motivated mostly by greed and spite, and reigned in by no one. It does little good to tell people to focus on that stuff because there is nothing concrete that can be gained by it, while you can actually gain influence by telling your Senators you don't want them to kill you, well, at least in large groups anyway.

Not to say we shouldn't pay attention to the things he does, or that we shouldn't be outraged, we should do both those things, but we can't let our outrage keep us from doing what we can either.

Anyway, I guess they are gonna try again, they are canceling some of their summer break to see if they can't break the deadlock, let's see if that happens.