Should-Read: Ezra Klein: Health Care Hot Potato

Should-Read: Ezra Klein: Health Care Hot Potato: “[Like the Tea Party] Caucus… the Coverage Caucus… don’t want to be blamed for [the bill’s] defeat… https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/5/4/15536422/health-care-hot-potato-ahca

…Their answer appears to be twofold: appropriate $8 billion for high-risk pools, even though experts on both sides of the aisle say that’s not nearly enough… and move the bill before a CBO score reveals what… they’re voting for…. The Coverage Caucus could be trying to solve… [the] problem… that the AHCA will throw tens of millions of people off health insurance and bring back the days when insurers could discriminate… on preexisting conditions, with catastrophic human and political costs…. Their proposed modifications don’t solve that problem…. They’re pushing a vote before CBO even looks at how much of that problem remains unsolved…. The Coverage Caucus could be trying to solve… [the problem of] be[ing] blamed for the AHCA’s second collapse. This objective fits their actions much better. Conventional wisdom among House moderates is that the… the best strategy is to… pass… the health care hot potato to the Senate….

The logic of playing health care hot potato is compelling…. It could lead to the bill’s eventual passage…. Promising that Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price will use some unspecified regulatory authority to make sure nothing bad ever happens to anyone… [could lead] the Senate… [to] pass the hot potato, too…. If… the hot potato eventually gets passed to the country… millions get burned…. The GOP[‘s]… collective action problem where every individual legislator is rationally refusing to be the cause of the bill’s failure, but that could mean the entire party ends up responsible for its catastrophic success…