Predict the House vote on the American Health Care Act

[Confused Democrat]

I'm still trying to figure out how it even gets close in the Senate. I can imagine it passing the House with no more than a couple of votes to spare. That could happen even with close to a couple of dozen GOP defections. But why would Republicans bother to whip a majority on an unpopular bill that appears to have virtually no hope of passing the Senate?

I don't think it's really that hard to understand.

Paul Ryan would rather have healthcare die in Senate, so he can say "I tried" and move on to passing tax reform legislation.

[Confused Democrat]

I'm still trying to figure out how it even gets close in the Senate. I can imagine it passing the House with no more than a couple of votes to spare. That could happen even with close to a couple of dozen GOP defections. But why would Republicans bother to whip a majority on an unpopular bill that appears to have virtually no hope of passing the Senate?

I think that the prospect of passing the bill in the senate is slim only because Rand Paul refuses to budge on accepting anything but one outcome: a full repeal of the bill.  That means Republicans can only afford to lose one more senator.  I think their best hope is revising the bill in a way that mostly placates centrists, and hoping that Cruz, Lee, et al. eventually come on board.  Otherwise, they might have to start all over.

I just don't see it happening.

Ryan is already planning to move AHCA further to the right in order to appease the Freedom Caucus before the floor vote on Thursday. The bill, as it is right now, already looks like it's going to be DOA in the Senate, but after the closed-door tweaks Ryan plans on making to the bill, I think it's going to be an even longer long-shot in the Senate.

Even if the bill somehow miraculously passes in the Senate, it would be after some heavy-handed modifications to the bill. Then it heads to a conference committee, where it probably dies, or it makes it through committee and dies on either the floor of the House or Senate. Probably the House floor, if I had to guess.

Also, I think it's hilarious that you believe Mike Lee and Ted Cruz, the man who spearheaded the shut down of our government, could conceivably fall in line for a vote on, if we're being honest with ourselves, an Obamacare modification bill. This isn't a replacement. It's just a crappy, watered down version of Obamacare.

[Confused Democrat]

I'm still trying to figure out how it even gets close in the Senate. I can imagine it passing the House with no more than a couple of votes to spare. That could happen even with close to a couple of dozen GOP defections. But why would Republicans bother to whip a majority on an unpopular bill that appears to have virtually no hope of passing the Senate?

I don't think it's really that hard to understand.

Paul Ryan would rather have healthcare die in Senate, so he can say "I tried" and move on to passing tax reform legislation.

What do you mean, "move on"? This bill is a tax cut first, Medicaid de-federalization second, and a reform of the ACA third.

Although, on the third count, "sabotage" would be a better term than "reform." Every problem that exists in the individual insurance marketplaces today will be multiplied tenfold with the individual mandate removed, and it's overwhelmingly likely that rural hospitals will close by the dozens within years without some kind of federal bailout if anything like this passes.

I don't disagree with your characterization of the AHCA.

The point I'm trying to make is that I think Ryan is aware of the fact that his party has completely botched their opportunity to repeal and replace Obamacare, and is now trying to shirk an Obamacare replacement and throw whatever train-wreck he can pass through the House onto Mitch McConnell's desk.