It's always in the last place you look, right?
Don't you hate the jackass who says that? Of course it is. If not, that means you kept looking after you found whatever it was you were trying to find.
It's always your last attempt at replacing Obamacare that works, right?
See where I'm going with this? On the other hand, if the past is guidance for understanding what will happen in the future, then... then the Republicans will do what they have done so far on healthcare. Perhaps come very close, as they did with "skinny repeal," which I thought was very close to passage, and then fail spectacularly.
So, we see the problem. There is a ticking clock right now for the expiration of reconciliation authority. If the GOP doesn't pass Graham-Cassidy by the end of the month, they have to go through more procedural rigamarole on their next attempt.
So, a few observations observations here.
1) McCain supports Graham-Cassidy.
2) McCain was the person whose whimsy killed "skinny repeal"
3) McCain gave a big speech about how everything needed to go through "regular order"
So...
What the fuck is regular order? I've addressed this before, and it isn't really well-defined. Basically, it's the Schoolhouse Rock "How a Bill Becomes a Law" thing.
Not to be confused with how we amend the Constitution...
So anyway, McCain wanted Schoolhouse Rock. Um, where are those committee hearings and debate? If that isn't happening, that doesn't meet any reasonable definition of "regular order" that I can devise, in which case what McCain demanded isn't happening.
So obviously, McCain will have to vote no, right?
Otherwise, he'd be a big, fucking hypocrite, right? I mean, to give a sanctimonious speech on the floor of the Senate about the importance of "regular order," and then vote for a version of a "repeal-and-replace" bill that didn't go through regular order only to kill "skinny repeal" and bask in the glory of positive media coverage for finally living up to his "maverick" reputation, and then just a few scant weeks later, casting the pivotal vote for another repeal bill that didn't go through "regular order"... I mean, that would just...
That would never happen, right? Right?
Like I said, unless McCain is a big, fuckin' hypocrite and a sanctimonious windbag without any real principles.
Google "Charles Keating" sometime...
Point being, we haven't seen anything like "regular order." What does that mean? A few possibilities. This could get dragged past the reconciliation deadline. This could fail again, with someone other than McCain objecting. Graham-Cassidy could pass! We don't know. The whole point of avoiding regular order was to avoid any public scrutiny, thereby also making it hard for us, the observers, to make assessments. My first-stop source of legislative news is Roll Call. Here's Roll Call's "Healthcare Hub." Do you see jack-fucking-shit about serious hearings through regular order on Graham-Cassidy? Neither do I.
Draw what conclusions you will from that.