Politics -- Nothing About The Bakken -- July 18, 2019

This is an incredibly interesting and important story.

I don't often see "overwhelming" "vote" to "repeal" an "Obamacare" tax all in one sentence.

This story tells me more about the 2020 election than about Obamacare.

The lede:

The House voted overwhelmingly to repeal a tax Wednesday intended to fund the Affordable Care Act, preserving tax breaks for employer-sponsored insurance plans favored by large corporations.

Going into this, my "take" from the mainstream media was that the millennial journalists writing about the upcoming vote weren't really sure how the vote would go, or more likely they did know but were hoping to have some influence on the outcome. They didn't.

The US House, which also apparently voted on articles of impeachment yesterday, overwhelmingly repealed the Obamacare "Cadillac" tax. As far as I can tell, this was about the last plank in Obamacare that needed attention.

The other planks such as pre-existing conditions will likely remain intact.

But that's Obamacare.

This vote was all about perception, not the merits of the bill. This vote was a referendum on the former president; it was not a vote on health care (or how to fund it). 

With that in mind, this is what really caught my attention: the second paragraph:

In a reversal of the usual partisan roles, Democrats rather than Republicans led the charge to kill a key part of Obamacare.

But then this, in the third paragraph -- which should have been in the lede -- "overwhelming" is/was an understatement. The vote was 419 - 6 "with bipartisan support." 

Well, duh. With a vote of 419- 6 how could it be anything other than "bipartisan support"? I assume this is code for the GOP killed Obamacare.

Flip-flopper at the top of the flip-flopping list? Representative Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the #2 Democrat in the House. The #1 Democrat in the US House remains a tie, shared between Ill-Hand Omar and Occasional-Cortex. Nancy Pelosi is now a distant third and fading.

Speaking of Nancy. Apparently she was unaware of the "Cadillac tax" when she voted in favor of Obamacare -- "we won't know what's in it until it passes."

The "Cadillac" tax was employer-sponsored coverage. It would have been a debacle, and would have raised ... get this ... $201 billion (false precision with that "one billion") over ... ten years. That's $20 billion / year.  Chickenfeed. 

More from the article, written by millennial journalists:

Democrats have generally opposed measures to chip away at President Barack Obama’s signature legislative achievement, but the Cadillac tax has been unpopular since it became part of the code.

The measure to repeal it, H.R. 748, was passed under a fast-track procedure requiring two-thirds support among House members.

Yet popularity doesn’t necessarily mean good policy, said Marc Goldwein, senior vice president at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Politicians don’t like the tax on health benefits, but nearly every economist thinks the Cadillac tax or a similar measure is necessary to help slow the rise in health-care costs and curb overuse of health services, he added.

It's pretty much impossible to find who the six were that voted to support this tax. I assume the Squad of Four were two-thirds of the six. But here's the list -- easily found -- but the millennial journalists writing this story did not post the nays: 

• Amash (who has gone off the deep end)
• Harris -- 1st District of Maryland, a physician
• Peters -- 52nd District of California
• Cooper -- 5th District of Tennessee
• Kind -- 3rd District of Wisconsin
• Roy -- 21st District of Texas

Not voting:

• Abraham -- 5th District of Louisiana
• Armstrong -- North Dakota -- is this correct? [An aside: "slams Trump's tweets, but voted "no" on resolution to condemn them; not an inspiring rep]
• Bilirakis -- 12th District, Florida
• Gabbard -- Tulsi -- Hawaii -- running for Democrat presidential nomination
• Halland -- New Mexico
• Hudson -- North Carolina
• Meadows -- North Carolina
• Walker -- North Carolina

Disclaimer: I did this quickly. The last names are correct as taken from the government website; identification of districts/states could be wrong due to mis-identifying individuals -- the government website did not provide first names.

Wow, I was wrong, both Ill-Hand Omar and Occasional-Cortex voted to support Big Business. In fact, all four, after getting the "okay" from Occasional-Cortex voted as a bloc to support Big Business.

The bill -- get this -- was sponsored by a Democrat. The Cadillac Tax repeal bill was sponsored by Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn) according to The Hill, and had 369 co-sponsors.

The US House Ways and Means Committee chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass) praised the bill to repeal this Obamacare tax. 

Wow.

2020 candidates getting nervous?

The current front-runners for the Democrat presidential bid would have all voted against the repeal based on their statements / speeches. Which leads me to this: Hillary Clinton was back in the news this morning, reportedly slamming President Trump's North Carolina rally that was held last night. I remain convinced she thinks the DNC convention will be a brokered convention, that the current contenders will implode, and that someone will made a diva ex machina entrance when the convention evolves / erupts into chaos. I am convinced she thinks she is that diva. She never supported Obamacare, she will remind the delegates.

No word from Michelle or Barry.

By the way, this bill to repeal an Obamacare tax should have been the easiest vote for ideologically-pure reps: this bill was passed for all intents and purposes, unanimously. This is where Ill-Hand-Omar and Occasional-Cortex could have voted their collective consciences and the bill still would have passed.