Republicans Weigh Their RyanCare Votes

This story was originally published on nationaljournal.com on March 21, 2017 More than a few House Re­pub­lic­ans are likely to be tak­ing deep breaths as they board the sub­way from the Long­worth or Ray­burn House Of­fice Build­ings to the Cap­it­ol on Thursday to vote on the Amer­ic­an Health Care Act. They know that they will be cast­ing a fate­ful vote on a bill that no one really likes and, giv­en the lack of af­fec­tion for it in the Sen­ate, one that is ex­tremely un­likely to be signed in­to law in its present form. Staunch con­ser­vat­ives don’t like it, some dis­miss­ing it as “Obama­care Lite,” while oth­er law­makers, mostly mod­er­ates or those rep­res­ent­ing swing dis­tricts, fear a back­lash if they de­cap­it­ate Obama­care. For Demo­crats, the vote is a no-brain­er. All are ex­pec­ted to vote against it. The irony, of course, is that the Amer­ic­an Health Care Act, aka Ry­an­Care, is, like the Af­ford­able Care Act of 2010, aka Obama­care, a mon­grel of a piece of le­gis­la­tion, with ex­traneous bits ad­ded to at­tract votes and oth­er pieces tossed in to avoid los­ing