Magox

Not all partnerships are the same. The one that is in place now is not that market based driven. You can make the partnership look considerably different than what it is today.

You can still have a fundamentally market based driven system with federal and state cooperation. It's not a zero sum game that ideologues seem to believe. There is an effective partnership to be had between the two.

Clearly MAJ was paying close attention to Darby, because he was so highly touted and all and he observed every single football player he has ever watched in college football. Can we wait until at least preseason to form our judgements?

So your anecdotal amateur opinion is of more value than this guy who makes a living out of it? Got it

I don't know, but call me crazy, maybe...... just maybe........ Bills fans are waiting till after FA period and the draft to make their final opinions known. Crazy, right??

I don't think your views are ridiculous, I just don't believe that the vast majority of people including those in congress truly understand three key fundamental points: A) The limitations of budget reconciliation B) Legislative and political reality C) That our government from my view should represent the wishes of the citizens, from both parties not a faction of their political base. LA, remember when we both used to believe that Ryan was the preeminent conservative mind in the GOP? Now he's been successfully caricatured from the right wing as some sort of globalist, illegal immigrant loving, establishment hack. It's not that he's changed, its that the party has. I've made this argument on this site many times before and I'm sticking to it. In regards to A) I'm not going to get into the nitty gritty but lets just say that budget reconciliation does not permit you to repeal and replace the entirety of the law. When Ryan brought in the Freedom caucus just yesterday and explained to them in detail the limitations of it, they began to change their tune. Not that they were in support of it, but now that they needed to change tactics. Rather than do what is permitted, they want to stack the repeal and replace with their wish list (which isn't representative of what the country wants) and then once the budget parliamentarian rules against it, overrule her. Which isn't something that is done. Do you really want to go down this road? Not only will it be a complete disaster politically but it still wouldn't pass. I'll get to that in a second. But imagine the precedent. When Progressives get back in power and make no mistake they will get back in power at some point. This progressive party just like the GOP has also moved further to their fringes. And they will pass single payer. They will pass huge tax increases. They will pass whatever the !@#$ they want that is from left wing landia. Is that what you want? I don't. But lets just say they overruled the budget parliamentarian, which to my understanding Pence could do so. But even then it has to go down to a vote, IN THE SENATE. Do you really think 51 Republicans will vote for what will be dubbed as a right wing bill? It won't be just your typical GOP agitators who will oppose it, such as Graham and McCain, but Portman, Caputo, Alexander, Flake, Gardener, Blunt, Collins, Corker and probably a few others. Do you know who will be most disproportionately affected from going with the ACA subsidies system to a purely market driven system? Individuals making less than $40,000 a year and couples making less than $60,000. Specially older folks, because of the provision in the law that doesn't allow insurers to charge older sicker folks more than what they should. They essentially cap what they should pay relative to younger healthier folks, meaning that older people disproportionately pay less relative to younger people who qualify for subsidies or are in urban markets where the health risk pools skew younger meaning lower premiums. Now I'm not in agreement with that provision, AT ALL. However, guess which age demographic votes for Republicans? The ones who will end up paying a lot higher premiums because of the changes. Can you imagine the AARP, AMA, hospital associations who are adamantly opposed with the more conservative wing of the parties dream bill, can you imagine all the lobbying, ads that they would run hammering Repubs for "ripping health insurance away from 20 million people". Even if you disagree with it that is what the ads would say. It would be bloody murder and Repubs would get absolutely crushed and pay a heavy political price. But the point is that even if you did stack the bill with what the freedom caucus wanted, you still wouldn't get to 50 votes. Didn't the GOP learn the mistake of the Democrats? That if you take such a huge undertaking such as healthcare and you run it on a purely partisan basis, right off the bat you will have at least half if not more of the country opposed to you. It will be the rallying call much like it was for Repubs in 2009 and 2010. Constant opposition, that's what a new generation of Progressives would come out of the woodwork and guess what their mandate would be? To do the same thing, ignore the budget parliamentarian, which they wouldn't even half to, they could throw in a huge tax increase which would suffice the Byrd rule voila! Single payer healthcare. Then its game over. This isn't a final product. It will be amended and there will be some bones that they will throw to the Freedom Caucus. But then it will go to the Senate and there will have to be concessions made between Centrists and Rand/Cruz and Lee. If they don't, then Obamacare stays. It's as simple as that.

I would be excited about bringing him aboard. My guess is that someone will pay him close to $10m a year.

Why do you care what he receives as long as the cap hit is down?

I don't think he's THAT solid of a #2. I don't know, he just doesn't do it for me.

If someone like a Watson or Mahomes makes it to the 2nd which I believe to be highly unlikely, I don't see how you pass on them.

I happen to agree with this. Seems like it became psychological for him, I'm going purely based on my observations but it seemed like passes going towards Goodwin were completed at a very low percentage. If I had to take a guess it would have been under 50% completion rate.

That is a zero sum logical fallacy. Just because you may not have a top tier passing QB, doesn't mean that you don't benefit greatly from being able to protect your QB. It's not a black or white issue. And we would have been even better with a quality RT

No, it's not. What you are saying is pure Bull ****. No, he's not. He is not only not 100% correct, not even 50%, not even 10%. I looked through what they are proposing and anyone who is looking at this with a scintilla of sense and basic comprehension of the English language knows that in the new proposal, those that have pre existing conditions will have access and FEDERAL subsidies administered through the states to cover those individuals with pre ex.

Pass rushers now-a-days come from both sides, the pay disparity shrinking from LT to RT makes sense. If you are willing to pay top dollar for a LT, then it also makes sense for a RT. Of course, that is if it fits your team construct and philosophy

It's a lot more complex than what most people know. In order to understand on what is able to get through and passed you have to understand how the reconciliation process works. Even some of the more thoughtful posters on this board weren't really aware of the mechanics and limitations of budget reconciliation. You can repeal and replace portions of the law but much of the core tenets that most Americans and it appears what Trump wants as well want for their healthcare you have to accomplish legislatively. So if you are a realist, you understand that in order to do that you have to get 60 votes and the more you pull away from covering those with pre ex and not assisting folks from getting coverage the less overall votes you will be able to garner. I saw TYTT advise that Republicans should wait until the midterms and hope to get a super majority. They have 51 right now, and typically the party in power does worse in the midterms. 1982 Ronald Reagan R 41 42 nd 42 nd 42 -26 +1 1986 LD Ronald Reagan R nd 64 nd 63 64 nd -5 -8 1990 George Bush R 75 73 54 nd nd 57 -8 -1 1994 William J. Clinton D 43 40 40 44 43 48 -52 -8 1998 LD William J. Clinton D 65 62 63 66 65 65 +5 0 2002 George W. Bush R nd 66 66 66 68 67 +8 +2 2006 LD George W. Bush R 37 42 39 44 37 37 -30 -6 2010 Barack Obama D 44 44 45 45 45 45 -63 -6 2014 Barack Obama D 42 42 41 43 42 41 -13 -9 If you look here which thats where I got the chart from up above. The number on the far right is how many Senate seats that were produced either a net gain or loss for the party in power. The best year for Senate seat pickups was George Bush in 2002 with a plus 2. The Senate map is favorable for Repubs, but as deeply unpopular as Trump is and the historical fact that midterms usually aren't that good for the party in power and the anecdotal evidence that Dems are pretty fired up, I would say that is highly unlikely. Plus the base of the party wants a repeal and they wanted it yesterday. Personally I would have rather of seen them do tax reform first, but the president doesn't have that much political capital as it is. My guess is that they will try to take advantage of the majority that they have now and try to get through this healthcare reform first, tax reform and infrastructure and then hope they retain control in 2018 to get through a few other things. When I speak to many of my friends from the left and right, I think they believe that only their constituency's views matter and the idea of compromise is a nonstarter. Whether you like it or not, this country is split pretty evenly down the middle. We saw what happened to Democrats when they jammed the law on a partisan basis. Look above at how many seats Obama cost his party. Healthcare was a big part of it, along with some of the paternalistic social views that they imposed on the country which didn't go over well with flyover country. The lesson that the GOP I would hope should have learned is that when you are dealing with something so important, so impactful as healthcare, passing this on a purely partisan basis, not only is it not representative of what the country as close to a whole would want their elected leaders to do, but the political price is fraught with peril. This is the bill that they released, my hope is that they will get the input of all their GOP members, which I'm predicting will move a little further to the right. Get enough votes to push to initially get it through and then once the negotiations begin with the left it will go further to the left than where it is right now. I predict they will keep the tax credits but modify it. RIght now the income level to receive the tax credits is up to $75,000 per individual and $150,000 for a couple. And it doesn't cut off if you have income slightly above that, a portion of that phases out per $1,000 above that amount. My guess is that they will lower the threshold, probably closer to $60,000 per individual with the same gradual phasing out mechanism. They will keep the pre ex subsidies and send these funds to the states so that they can distribute that to the carriers that participate in these programs. They will attempt to add the competing across state lines, not to the bill because you can't with reconciliation. Medicaid won't substantively change that much than what they have proposed now. All Democrats are adamantly opposed to this and I know of at least 4 Repubs in the Senate and some Republican governors who oppose changes that lessen coverage. This isn't my dream bill, but it's much better and realistic than I thought they would have presented. My fear was that they were going to go more in the direction of what Rand would have wanted, which would have been cheered by some on the right but would have never have come close to becoming a reality. What would have happened is they would have repealed as much as they could have and then nothing would have gotten through the Senate and house and we would have basically gone back to what we had before the ACA but even worse because of the market disruptions it would have caused. Hopefully, the Freedom Caucus and Rand and co. take a constructive role and follow what Reagan's advice of "My 80 percent friend is not my 20 percent enemy"

Avik Roy, who I consider to be one of the better minds when it comes to healthcare, says: So you have the more conservative wing of the GOP which thinks that advanced tax credits shouldn't be given and Avik Roy who thinks they aren't generous enough for large swaths of the population. Of course we know what the left wingers want. I think they aren't too far off of the sweet spot. If it they get a few Dems, they will have to go just a little further to the left. At the end of the day, it's already looking better than what we have now.

The health bill that has been put on the table is a good starting place. Much to the dismay of many on the further right side of the conservative wing, the bill initially will begin to move slightly more to the right and by the time its all said and done, if indeed they get 60 votes on some of the provisions of the finality of their plan, it will swing further to the left than where it began. Which means more funding for tax credits and pre ex along with more means testing. They will most likely lower the upper tier of the income threshold to try to bring down the cost of the bill. The starting point is better than I thought it would be. I thought it was going to start off much further to the right which of course would doom any possibility of there being any bipartisanship. Where it is right now with some coaxing, political pressure on red state Dems and maybe some purple state ones along with a concession or two to the left, I think there is a chance they could pick off some Dems. I'm encouraged. But Ted Cruz/Rand Paul and the Freedom Caucus says they could do it just like that. "On day one " bla bla bla

I don't know of anyone from any ideology on this board who has spoken from a substantive standpoint as much as I have. From day one

That has nothing to do with what he posted. If anything there will be a lot more carriers wanting to participate in the individual market due to the relaxing of the paternalistic regulations that the ACA brought onto the carriers.

I suspect you are correct.

For now. But once the law is repealed; for better or for worse it will belong to the GOP. The GOP hopefully will learn from the mistake of the Democrats and not try to do this on a strictly partisan basis. Something as large and as impactful as Healthcare reform is should be done on a bipartisan basis. If not, you will have this constant drumbeat of opposition like the ACA had. They need to try to craft the bill to where at least 60-65% of the US Senate will end up voting for it.

Its one thing to strike an agreement within your own caucus, it's another thing to get 60 votes through the Senate, which is what would be needed to get through. Even though there may be a way for them to pass s the repeal together with elements of their plan such as the advanced tax credits through reconciliation. I'd have to look that up a little more.

Looks like some members of the more conservative wing of the party may end up going along with Ryan's plan. The issue primarily was about the tax credits, it appears that some of them may end up accepting a means tested version of it to go through. Advanced tax credits is essentially a subsidy, so the main argument against it from the Freedom Caucus is that it would create a new entitlement and of course the budget consequences. The ACA rewarded subsidies based off of income, the Ryan/Price/Trump plan is to provide them based off of age. Older people would get advanced tax credits/subsidies twice as large as younger people, which sounds like a lot but is considerably less than the way ACA rewarded them. This new advanced tax credits doesn't reward the subsidies in such a perverse matter that essentially discriminates more so against younger folks, which is a good thing. You need younger people signing up to create healthier risk pools which in turn drives premiums down. The concession that is being discussed between some members of the Freedom Caucus and Ryan/Price is that rather than just give it based off of age, to means test the advanced tax credits and have the wealthiest people not be eligible for the subsidy. Now on one hand I find that to be a little ironic since that is indeed a part of economic progressive orthodoxy, but on the other hand, their argument is that the bill will cost less with this concession, which is true.

Yeah, I don't see that happening either. If you like him, get him at 10. Even though I have a funny feeling he is going to be sky rocketing up many teams draft boards.

Comey asks Justice department to publicly reject Trump's claim