General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Paul Ryan [View all]Hortensis
(58,785 posts)group who call themselves the Freedom caucus, but a more apt name is the Koch caucus. (Aha!?) If they please their backers, they get to come back next term. If they don't, their backers will replace them with someone who will.
Because of that, the party leadership has virtually no control over the Koch caucus.
Nor do their constituents, who have been trained to vote for any Republican on the ballot over a Democrat. It just takes some money infusion at election time to bury any primary opposition and get their constituents out to vote against the Democrat in the general.
Charles Koch, and therefore the giant kochtopus, was against this bill passing because--he said--it wasn't a big enough step toward total destruction of this government program. So it didn't pass. He and his people have a plan B (maybe several) for sure, and whatever that is is already in the works.
As for the other Republicans who wouldn't support it, it's a horrible bill that would replace a good law designed to serve all Americans and all healthcare-related industries well with one that failed everyone. The more hard-core among them were concerned about possible blowback from business and from voters in 2018. Some others were also concerned about blowback but also genuinely deplored a bill so bad that it actually threatened the economy.
What I'd love to have explained is how Ryan, a libertarian every bit as extreme as the Kochs and someone they once pushed on Romney for his VP, ended up being someone they might take out in plan B. Is it more evidence of incompetence in Ryan that he couldn't somehow get them in line? Or did he shrug off their leash for some reason? Or?