Tea Party Patriots Ordinary citizens reclaiming America's founding principles.
Showing posts with label ObamaCare. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ObamaCare. Show all posts

Friday, December 9, 2022

GOPe: Selling Out Your Own Side

 

Does anyone remember that the GOPe spent many years raising millions of dollars on the promise, the absolute promise to repeal Obamacare?  The GOP got the House, the Senate, and the White House, and Obamacare still stands.  It occurred to me then that the GOPe's strategy to raise lots and lots of money was/is to make promises that they do not intend to ever keep.  I figured that the GOPe did not WANT to be in the majority, lest it become obvious that they don’t mean what they say.  They just want your money.

Emerald Robinson’s latest column at The Right Way Substack has a take on this charming state of affairs:

. . . Right now, GOP leadership is working on a mass amnesty bill in the lame duck session that’s opposed by the overwhelming majority of GOP voters. To fully understand the depth of this treachery, you have to recall that GOP politicians spent the last two years complaining about the invasion on the Southern border. They did this every day — every hour! —on Fox News, and other corporate media outlets. It was the GOP’s daily drum beat. Kevin McCarthy even promised to impeach DHS chief Alejandro Mayorkas over the border disaster.

In the midst of all those promises — and all that posturing — GOP Senate leadership is ready to deliver a mass amnesty bill? That’s either political malpractice of the highest order, or the ultimate sign that the GOP establishment stands for nothing and stands against nothing.

It’s the latter, of course. 

Read the rest here.  I would argue is that the collapse didn’t just happen in the past month or so.  It’s been in a state of collapse for years;  Unfortunately, it is only relatively recently that many conservatives have begun to recognize the collapse. 

# # #



Sunday, April 11, 2021

Is Matt Gaetz another RINO?

 


Matt Gaetz has been in the headlines recently over what may be trumped-up charges of sexual abuse.  Assuming those charges to be a means to intimidate Rep. Gaetz and pressure him to resign, what got Republic Journal’s attention was the reflexive support coming from the conservative right.  Republic Journal doesn’t think much of Mr. Gaetz, and here’s an excerpt:

Gaetz was at a school in Fort Walton Beach Florida when a student asked him about Florida legislation that allowed gay couples to adopt kids.  Matt said that he was proud to have sponsored that legislation.  This was a strange and bizarre statement because Matt NEVER sponsored any legislation for that purpose.  Why the lie?  No one knows but what came next was shocking as Matt continued by saying that he didn’t believe young people were as judgmental as the older generation.  By judgmental, he meant that older conservatives believed it’s best for a child to be adopted by a male/female couple to represent mother and father.  No one asked him about the older generation, but he used the same phrase that’s taught by the LGBT community for leaders to use.

What’s the point of my rambling?  Matt isn’t what people think that he is and ALL of us should desire principle above personality.  His supporters can’t point to a single piece of legislation that he’s been behind that we support.  They can’t explain why he received maximum donations from strip clubs or used his committee to expand gambling rights when every member voted against it.  Matt has a gift of gab but lacks leadership qualities and depth of conviction.  If we are to drain the swamp then we must desire character above personality and action above talk.  Because Matt talks a good talk no one noticed that he joined the climate change committee to advance their legislative goals.  No one noticed how he attempted to stop a sex trafficking bill that allowed government agencies to talk to each other in real-time to save children from that evil trade.  No one noticed that he was the deciding vote to push Obamacare 2.0 out of the finance committee when conservatives wanted it dead on arrival.  . . .

And the full article by Republic Journal is here.

# # #


Thursday, September 19, 2019

Four Health Care Whoppers



Betsy McCaughey's analysis of Democrat candidates' proposed healthcare "plans" is at Real Clear Politics:

When it comes to health care, Democrats are selling snake oil. Americans are grappling with rising medical costs. But if they fall for the phony solutions the left is offering, they'll pay with exorbitant taxes and shorter lives.

Whopper 1: Obamacare is affordable. Joe Biden's running a television ad in Iowa pledging to stand by Obamacare because "every American deserves affordable health care." Iowans aren't going to buy that. They're not hayseeds.

Truth: In Iowa, 90% of Obamacare customers who paid their own way in 2014 have dropped their coverage. Obamacare is affordable only if you qualify for a subsidy. Middle-class people who earn too much to get taxpayer-funded help can't afford to stay enrolled. They "have taken it on the chin," reports Larry Levitt of the Kaiser Family Foundation. Why is the number of uninsured in America suddenly rising again? Blame Obamacare for pricing the middle class out of insurance.
. . .
Pols are scapegoating drug companies and insurance companies. Here's what they're not telling you: Medical costs in the United States are rising just as fast in other developed countries. Major culprits are the obesity epidemic and inactive lifestyles, not America's capitalist health system.

Health costs are a top issue in the 2020 election, and every candidate has a "plan." These plans are mere shell games, shifting the costs from one group of people to another. No one wins but the pols.

For all 4 Whoppers, click here.
# # #

Sunday, September 15, 2019

Are you on Facebook?



It’s not just on Facebook. But here is how Michael Muldowney’s experience on FB ended up:

Is this where the liberals are headed?  Facts and reason are irrelevant?  They want what they want, and reality and the rest of us be damned?  We either kowtow to the liberal-Marxist-progressive-socialist-Democrat agenda or become non-persons?  Down the memory hole?  Have they lost the ability to engage as responsible participants in the civil society?  If one side throws a tantrum and refuses to act as normal adults, how can our nation continue to function?

Good question. Read the rest at American Thinker here.
# # #


Sunday, July 21, 2019

The Uniparty in Action, er, Inaction




Don Surber posts daily bullet-points of headlines around the web. Here’s an item from this morning, linked to TownHall:

Michael Reagan wrote, "While I have to watch Democrats in Congress waste time hating and sanctioning the president and trashing America as a racist country after it twice elected a black president, I still have an invasion of illegal immigrants on my southern border.

"And while I watch Democrats -- and Republicans -- in Washington spend another year kicking the health care-reform can down the road, I have a daughter-in-law and son in Los Angeles who suddenly had their private health insurance cancelled and must now sign up with the state's system because there's no competition in California.

"Both Republican and Democrats are at fault for our health care and immigration messes.

"Both parties have recently held total control of Congress and the White House at the same time, yet neither one honestly tried solve the country's two most important problems.

"If they can't find the political courage to fix health care or immigration by next fall, we shouldn't give one member of Congress from either party a single vote.

More here. Background on Uniparty here
# # #

Wednesday, June 19, 2019

Healthcare update – and it’s good



image credit: powerlineblog.com


Headline: Trump Just Revolutionized Health Care — And Nobody Noticed


Under the plan, employers will be able to fund tax-free Health Reimbursement Accounts for their workers, who can then use the money to buy an individual insurance plan — thereby taking another step toward fixing the 77-year-old tax distortion. The rule also lets employers fund a different account to buy cheaper “short-term” plans.

“This subtle, technical tweak has the potential to revolutionize the private health insurance market,” wrote Avik Roy, one of the smartest health care experts around, in the Washington Post.

The administration figures that 800,000 employers will eventually move to HRA plans, and 11 million workers will get their benefits this way.

At the same time, Trump also loosened the federal rules that had needlessly impeded “association health plans.” These are plans that let members of various groups band together to buy insurance. The result will be more competition, and more affordable choices for millions of people.

The Democrats’ response? Attack these changes as another attempt by Trump to “sabotage” Obamacare. What they really fear, however, is that the two new rules will destroy their case for socialized medicine.

The full report is here. Even as Congress continues to drag its feet, and the RINO’s who campaigned on repealing Obamacare reneged on their promises, the Trump administration is finding ways to improve healthcare for Americans.
# # #

Monday, December 17, 2018

The End of Obamacare?



At his website Legal Insurrection, Prof. William Jacobson thinks the U.S. District judge who ruled the other day that Obamacare is unconstitutional may have the winning argument:

If the ruling holds up on appeal, Obamacare is dead. As a doorknob. Not just the mandate or some other particular provisions. He killed the WHOLE THING.
. . .
Here’s the short version. Texas and other states sued to declare the individual mandate unconstitutional because in the recent tax reform the penalty for failing to pay the mandate was removed. (2nd Amended Complaint here) With the removal of the mandate penalty, the mandate no longer was a function of Congress’ taxing power, which was the basis upon which John Roberts and the liberal Justices on the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the mandate in 2012. The Court conservative and Roberts had ruled the mandate violated the Commerce Clause, but Roberts broke with the conservatives on the tax power issue.

Architects of Obamacare are not happy, and that’s a good sign. Katie Pavlich reports:

Essentially, without the mandate -- Obamacare cannot stand.

Architects of the program, including the guy [Jonathan Gruber} who called Americans "stupid," aren't happy about it. Despite arguing for years the mandate was essential to the success of Obamacare, they're now backtracking in an attempt to save what's left. 

Let’s hope Jacobson and Pavlich are correct.
# # #

Friday, October 12, 2018

The Medicare-for-All Hoax

photo credit: magnoliabox.com

Cleveland Tea Party was one of many liberty groups and organizations that fought hard to prevent Obamacare from becoming law. We prepared and participated in delegations that visited offices of our representatives, made phone calls, organized rallies, etc. The GOP members of Congress have still not made good on their campaign promises (years of promises) to repeal Obamacare -- and now we are looking at yet another destructive proposal from the Democrat Party to take another wrecking ball to Americans’ access to their healthcare plan of choice.

Two days ago, President Trump published his op-ed and call-to-arms to stop the “Medicare For All” madness in USA Today. The mainstream media pounced on it, reproducing big chunks of it on their websites, so I decided to paste Trump's entire columns below (skip to the end if you’ve already read it to see links to the counter-counter arguments):

The Democrats want to outlaw private health care plans, taking away freedom to choose plans while letting anyone cross our border. We must win this.

Sunday, June 3, 2018

John Boehner speaks (for the Uniparty)

photo credit: mashable.com


John Boehner speaks (reported by Rick Moran at PJ Media):

The worst House speaker in perhaps the last 100 years says, "There is no Republican Party." Coming from the man who did more than most to destroy it, it seems ironic that he should complain.

"The Republican Party is kind of taking a nap somewhere," Boehner added. He should know all about that since, under his leadership, the GOP was snoozing while Obama enacted a radical, liberal agenda.
. . .
But is he right?

Depends what you mean when you say "Republican Party." If you mean the party of Ronald Reagan, Boehner is right. But Trump wasn't responsible for the death of Reagan Republicanism. That honor goes to George W. Bush, whose "big government conservatism" led to political and economic disaster.

John Boehner was/is a member in good standing of the Uniparty. As Sundance pointed out earlier this year with respect to Speaker Paul Ryan:

Republicans did not want to win the majority position and face having to reveal their true UniParty agenda.

BTW, I got another fund-raising call the other day from the Republican National Committee. I decided to take the call instead of just hanging up. When the chap started in on his scripted message, I interrupted him to let him know that I was an angry conservative voter. For over seven years, the GOP has raised millions of dollars, and gained the House and Senate and White House, on their promises to repeal Obamacare. With majorities in both chambers of Congress, they have refused to repeal it. I repeated that bit, and that was the end of that phone call.

Read the rest of the report at PJ Media here.
# # #

Friday, January 26, 2018

Unraveling Obamacare bit by bit



Steve Breen cartoon via strangefunnies.blogspot.com

Today, Mr. Speaker Gingrich posted at Fox and to his newsletter list his assessment of the Trump Administration’s ongoing efforts to bring down healthcare costs, chip away at what remains of Obamacare, and gradually introduce better options for all Americans. Here is part of his posting:

President Trump has also moved beyond opposing Obamacare and has begun to develop a better system for the future. What replaces Obamacare is at least as important as voting to repeal it.

Replacing Obamacare requires a lot of specific steps to return to a market-based, decentralized system in 50 different states. The Trump Administration and its Republican allies in Congress have been working diligently in that direction.

At the Department of Labor, Secretary Alexander Acosta issued proposed rules which would dramatically expand the availability of Association Health Plans. These plans could be national and regional, allowing for the sale of insurance across state lines, but critically still maintain state autonomy in regulating insurance – which will help police against fraud. Some of the details of the rules may need to be improved to prevent insurance companies from cherry-picking healthy customers, but overall this represents a potentially game-changing reform that could have huge cost saving implications for small business owners and the self-employed.

The Trump Administration has also allowed insurers to continue offering “grandmothered” plans created prior to Obamacare, maintaining these lower cost plans for long-time customers. This saved many small businesses and self-employed people a lot of money and anxiety which would have been caused by the Obamacare plan to force them into the government system even if they were happy with their current plan.

In addition, the Trump Administration fixed a number of loopholes in the Obamacare enrollment rules, which some customers had been using to game the system to avoid paying their premiums and wait until they got sick to get coverage, by claiming they qualified for a “Special Enrollment Period.” This fraud drove up prices for everyone. The Trump Administration issued new rules that fixed a number of these problems.

President Trump also made it easier for people to shop for health insurance without using the Healthcare.gov website. For 2019 enrollment, customers can fully use the insurer websites, as well as aggregators like ehealthinsurance.com. All of this increases convenience, expands choice, and makes lower costs possible.

Finally, just last week, Congress enacted a key reform which flew almost completely under the media’s radar. The Continuing Resolution passed to reopen the government this week suspended the health insurance tax for one year, the device tax for two years, and delayed the Cadillac tax until 2022, all of which were part of Obamacare. All of these taxes were simply passed on to patients in the form of higher premiums, so each of these steps will save patients money.

“Replacing Obamacare requires a lot of specific steps to return to a market-based, decentralized system in 50 different states.” So here is related news:

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Concerned about soaring health care costs, Idaho on Wednesday revealed a plan that will allow insurance companies to sell cheap policies that ditch key provisions of the Affordable Care Act.

It's believed to be the first state to take formal steps without prior federal approval for creating policies that do not comply with the Obama-era health care law. Health care experts say the move is legally dubious, a concern supported by internal records obtained by The Associated Press.

Idaho Department of Insurance Director Dean Cameron said the move is necessary to make cheaper plans available to more people. Otherwise, he said he fears the state's individual health insurance marketplace will eventually collapse as healthy residents choose to go uninsured rather than pay for expensive plans that comply with the federal law.

Hope to see more of this. The rest of Newt’s article is here.

# # #

Wednesday, January 3, 2018

Healthcare in 2018


cartoon by Jake Fuller via caymancompass.com

Residents in Geneva, New York have been promoting single-payer (i.e., government-run) healthcare as better than healthcare provided by the private sector:

Those supporting an effort to get universal health care in New York — including members of a fledgling organization in Geneva — hope to convince state legislators of the need through the stories of their constituents.
. . .
The goal is to gather information with these surveys to help lobby lawmakers to support the New York Health Act, which would provide comprehensive, universal health coverage to all state residents, and which would replace private insurance coverage.

Coverage would be funded through a graduated tax on payroll and non-payroll taxable income, based on ability to pay. 

These people should be careful what they wish for. Even with the Obamacare mandate eliminated, repealing the entire Obamacare bill remains a legislative priority for President Trump. It should be a priority for McConnell and Ryan, because this is what government-run healthcare looks like (posted at Hannity.com on Jan-03-18):

The United Kingdom’s National Health Service announced this week that it was canceling all “routine operations” until February, saying all “non-emergency” procedures will be delayed after a flu-outbreak left hospitals overcrowded and under-funded.

According to the Telegraph, the nation’s government-run health services axed over 50,000 operations in every hospital in the UK following claims by doctors that patients were being treated as if they were in “third world countries.”
. . .
The chaos comes as prominent Democrats and liberal legislators like Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders advocate for a similar, single-payer healthcare system in the United States. Left-wing advocates often point to Canada and the United Kingdom as an “ideal” vision for the future of America’s health industry.

The NHS is closing clinics, cancelling surgeries, the hospitals are overcrowded, they are even “running out of corridor space,” and there are ambulances lined up outside

At present, the Senate does not have enough GOP votes to repeal Obamacare (see here). The elimination of the mandate was a good start, but just a start. I still think that if the exemption from Obamacare currently enjoyed by members of Congress were eliminated, they'd find a way to get the job done.

# # #

Saturday, October 14, 2017

Faithful Execution of Obamacare


 image credit: True Democracy Party


Andrew McCarthy is no fan of President Trump, but his clear analysis of Trump’s dismantling of Obamacare is in stark contrast with all the media hysteria:

The law is unraveling on its own terms.

. . . What Trump has actually done is end the illegal payoffs without which insurance companies have no rational choice but to jack up premiums or flee the Obamacare exchanges. The culprits here are the charlatans who gave us Obamacare. To portray Trump as the bad guy is not merely fake news. It’s an out-and-out lie.

Which is to say: It’s about as honest as the Democrats’ labeling of Obamacare as the Affordable Care Act.

The subsidy payments to insurance companies may be “critical” to sustaining the ACA, but they are not provided for in the ACA. The Obamacare law did not appropriate them. No legislation appropriates them. They are and have always been illegal. In essence, we are back to the question we asked a couple of weeks ago in connection with Trump’s then-anticipated decertification of Obama’s Iran Nuclear Deal: It is not whether the president should take this action; it is why he failed to take it before now. 

Under the Constitution, no funds may be paid out of the treasury unless they have been appropriated by Congress. It is not enough for lawmakers to authorize a government program or action. The House and Senate must follow through with a statute that directs payment for the program or action. Standing alone, authorization is just aspiration; it does not imply appropriation. Congress authorizes a lot of things, but only the things for which Congress approves the disbursal of public money are permitted to happen.

. . .

Read the rest here
# # #



Friday, October 13, 2017

Good news on Health Care





 photo credit: Legal Insurrection

Despite the GOP winning majorities in both the House and Senate, and then winning the White House, the pathetic GOPe in Congress have utterly failed to deliver on its promise to repeal the misnamed “Affordable Care Act.” The bill to repeal should have been on the President’s desk on Day 1, but the GOP, it would seem, never dreamed they’d have to make good on the promise.

Now President Trump has signed a few Executive Orders to begin to dismantle the monstrosity known as Obamacare, and Betsy McCaughey reports on what that means:


Trump strikes a blow 

for health care freedom

Free at last! That’s the message for millions who don’t get health coverage at work and, until now, faced two dismal options: going without insurance or paying Obama­Care’s soaring premiums. On Thursday, President Trump announced changes that will allow consumers to choose coverage options costing half of what ObamaCare’s cheapest bronze plans cost.
Democrats are already accusing the president of kneecapping ObamaCare, but these changes will reduce the number of uninsured — something Democrats claim is their goal.
The Affordable Care Act requires everyone to buy the one-size-fits-all package. You have to pay for maternity care, even if you’re too old to give birth. You’re also on the hook for pediatric dental care, even if you’re childless. It’s like passing a law that the only car you can buy is a fully-loaded, four-door sedan. No more hatchbacks or two-seaters.
Trump’s taking the opposite approach, allowing consumers choice. His new regulation will free people to again buy “short-term” health plans that exclude many costly services, such as inpatient drug rehab. These plans aren’t guaranteed to be renewable year to year; the upside is they cost much less.
. . .
. . . Trump has now seized the initiative, after congressional Republicans fell flat on their faces and failed to address the pain ObamaCare is inflicting on consumers stuck in the individual insurance market.
The president should keep going. What’s next? Trump should use his discretion to stop enforcing the tax penalty on those who don’t buy ObamaCare-compliant plans, including buyers of short-term plans.
Then he should cancel the sweetheart deal his predecessor weaseled for members of Congress and their staff members. Even though the Affordable Care Act requires them to buy coverage on ObamaCare exchanges, Obama arranged for them to have a choice of 57 gold plans and have John Q. Public pick up most of their costs. It’s an outrage.
Once members of Congress are feeling the same pain as everyone else, they’ll be more focused on repealing and replacing the dysfunctional health law. In the meantime, Trump is wisely providing relief where it counts the most — in people’s wallets.
Read the rest here.

# # #

Sunday, July 30, 2017

Governor Kasich and Senator Portman on Obamacare


art credit: Conservative Review

Ohio Governor John Kasich said Sunday the collapse of the Republican healthcare bill in the U.S. Senate was a "good thing," but was adamant the policy debate was not over.
David Catron at The American Spectator blog named Portman as one of the six Senators whom he describes as liars, frauds, charlatans – well, you get the idea:
The following Republican Senators demonstrated [last Wednesday] that they are liars and frauds: Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.), Dean Heller (Nev.), John McCain (Ariz.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), and Rob Portman (Ohio).
. . . if a Republican won the 2016 presidential election, the same bill [as an earlier partial repeal bill] or something very similar could be quickly passed by a GOP-controlled Congress and signed into law. Every single Republican who ran for the House or the Senate in 2016 made similar statements, including the six charlatans listed above.
These mountebanks, all of whom voted for “clean repeal” when Obama’s inevitable veto made it safe and politically expedient to do so, voted against a virtually identical bill [last week] — knowing full well that President Trump would sign it. In other words, they consciously betrayed their constituents, their party, and the nation as a whole.
At least we know where Kasich and Portman stand.

# # #

Monday, July 24, 2017

Repealing Obamacare: again


YouTube: Right Side Broadcasting

Following President Trumps’s brief speech today (above) in a last-ditch effort to get the Uniparty RINOs to keep their promise to repeal Obamacare, it’s timely to review a couple of reasons why Congress should repeal:
  • Medicare is not the answer. Here is today’s horror story about a 91-year old needing treatment but getting rejected by the system.
  • Single-payer systems put the state, not the individual in charge of medical decisions. Here’s Mr. Vodkapundit (Stephen Green) on the final chapter in little Baby Gard’s life, and the tragic situation with his parents.

Yet Congress is so used to end-running rules, breaking campaign promises, and disregarding their constituencies that it will be a miracle if they do the right thing on healthcare. How do they keep getting away with it? Here’s an essay by Angelo M.Codevillaon at the American Greatness blog about what “regular order” in the legislative process is supposed to look like. 


# # #

Friday, July 21, 2017

What’s wrong with Rob Portman?


cartoon credit: Walt Handelsman
via US News and World Report / The New Orleans Advocate


Do Lisa Murkowski, Rob Portman, and Shelley Moore Capito expect to ever get votes from Republican voters again?
Here’s a question: How long have Republicans been running for federal office on repealing Obamacare, in Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s terminology, “Root and branch”?
Answer: since 2010.
. . .
You would figure that with Donald Trump in the White House and Republican majorities in the House and Senate, repealing Obamacare would be a no-brainer.
OK, the repeal-and-replace angle could be harder to pull off. That’s understandable. There are lots of different kinds of Republicans, and it might be hard to get all of them to coalesce behind a single federal healthcare policy to replace it. Those of us whose studies of the American public sector have led to an understanding that the less federal healthcare policy there is the healthier the healthcare industry will be have a far simpler solution to that problem, but we are unfortunately not the majority — in the House, Senate or public. That’s a shame, and it’s a symptom of a larger civic disease, but that’s for another column in this space. There will be a replacement for Obamacare, and we can hope it’s less awful than what it stands in for.
But when the Senate version of an Obamacare replacement foundered and McConnell announced the next step would be, early next week, an up-or-down vote for an Obamacare repeal now and the crafting of a replacement as a consensus for one emerges, that’s something an entire GOP caucus can vote for.
Minus Susan Collins, of course; Maine’s quote-unquote Republican Senator wouldn’t vote to repeal Obamacare back in 2015 when McConnell’s majority sent a bill doing just that to then-President Obama’s desk to die. But outside of Collins and Mark Kirk of Illinois, who is no longer in the Senate, the rest of the caucus was on board with the repeal.
And yet Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, West Virginia’s Shelley Moore Capito, and Ohio’s Rob Portman have now joined Collins in announcing they won’t support a repeal when the vote comes up next week.
What is wrong with these people?
Capito laced her announcement with a special bit of arsenic for Republican voters. “I didn’t come to Washington to hurt people,” she said.
No, Senator, apparently you came to Washington to lie to people.
. . .

What’s wrong with these people? My guess in one word: Uniparty. And the rest of Scott McKay's article is here.

Monday, July 17, 2017

No repeal of Obamacare, again. Thanks GOP.

art credit: huffington post

The GOP members of Congress who put the repeal of Obamacare to a vote dozens of times during the previous administration [per Treehouse, the Senate considered only defunding Obamacare, not repealing], and the GOP candidates who pledged to repeal Obamacare in order to get elected, were all lying through their teeth. They never dreamed that Trump would be elected and that they’d be put on the spot to make good on their promises. And take a look at the two GOP Senators who just announced their intention to vote no! From the AP :

WASHINGTON (AP) — The latest GOP effort to repeal and replace "Obamacare" was fatally wounded in the Senate Monday night when two more Republican senators announced their opposition to legislation strongly backed by President Donald Trump.

The announcements from Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Jerry Moran of Kansas left the Republican Party's long-promised efforts to get rid of President Barack Obama's health care legislation reeling. Next steps, if any, were not immediately clear.

Lee and Moran both said they could not support Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's legislation in its current form. They joined GOP Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Rand Paul of Kentucky, both of whom announced their opposition right after McConnell released the bill last Thursday.

McConnell is now at least two votes short in the closely divided Senate and may have to go back to the drawing board or even begin to negotiate with Democrats, a prospect he's threatened but resisted so far.

Some of us had higher hopes for Mike Lee and even Rand Paul. Lesson learned: they are all politicians. And they lie.

# # #