Boehner’s “Circular Firing Squad” on the ACA
Politico is out with an astounding story on conservative infighting on the Accountable Care Act (ACA) as the Supreme Court ruling on the Constitutionality of the ACA nears. The story is further evidence of the fact that House Speaker John Boehner doesn’t control a GOP caucus — he’s trying to mollify an unruly coalition while surrounded by a Tea-Party driven “circular firing squad” of conservative activists and opinion leaders. It’s impossible for him to control, and will lead to more volatile, dangerous posturing from the Speaker in the months to come.
I’ll share the story in its entirety here, it’s a rare glimpse into Republican internecine warfare:
Conservative Infighting Over Health Care
By JAKE SHERMAN | 5/17/12 8:13 PM EDT
Thirty minutes.
That’s roughly the time it took for conservatives to jump all over Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and his leadership team after the GOP’s game plan for dealing with President Barack Obama’s health care law leaked to the media.
Their gripe? Republicans would try to replicate popular parts of Obama’s health care law if the Supreme Court overturns the law this summer.
Rather than sending out news releases or rushing to cable TV for a rant, conservatives blasted House Republican leadership on a private Google email group called The Repeal Coalition. The group is chock- full of think tank types, some Republican leadership staffers, health care policy staffers and conservative activists, according to sources in the group.
The behind-the-scenes fight among Republicans richly illustrates why House GOP leadership is so cautious, sensitive and calculating when it comes to dealing with the conservative right. POLITICO obtained the email chain, the contents of which show that health care reform remains just as emotional an issue as ever.
Wesley Denton, an aide to Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), questioned whether the “GOP now against full repeal?”
“Should we change the name of this [listserv] to ‘partialrepealcoalition’ or ‘someofobamacareisprettygood’?” Denton wrote to the group.
Brian Worth, a GOP leadership staffer responsible for coordinating with outside groups, shot back that “the House has already passed a full repeal bill.”
Brian Worth, a GOP leadership staffer responsible for coordinating with outside groups, shot back that “the House has already passed a full repeal bill.”
“Has the Senate passed that bill yet?” Worth asked Denton, in the email chain.
Russ Vought, a former House Republican staffer who is now at Heritage Action for America, bluntly said, “that has absolutely nothing to do with it.” The “House GOP is going to cave after winning an election on full repeal … and before winning the next election to finish the job.”
“Unreal,” he said.
The common Washington narrative holds that Boehner, Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) have trouble wrangling the members in the House Republican Conference. That might be true — at times.
But groups on the outside are also problematic. When a certain issue gets hot, email groups like The Repeal Coalition pop up, causing spirited debate among staffers and activists. It also gins up opposition to — or support for — leadership, creating a sense of group-think that’s often hard for leadership to contain to control.
For example, during the debt ceiling debate last summer, a group of conservatives gathered on a Cut, Cap and Balance email chain — taking its name from a plan pushed by conservatives like Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz and Republican Study Committee Chairman Jim Jordan of Ohio.
It’s another turn of the screw for a Washington that is influenced by deep-pocketed, high-profile legislative-action groups. From Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform to Heritage Action to Club for Growth, these groups are frequent judges of Republican Washington and aren’t afraid to speak out against fellow conservatives.
House GOP leadership sees these outside conservative groups as being on the fringes and irrationally distrustful of Republicans in power. Boehner has tried to repeal or weaken the president’s health care law dozens times this Congress, leadership insiders say. Why would conservatives think he’s all of a sudden going soft on his commitment to overturn what they dub “Obamacare”? Plus, anything Boehner does after the Supreme Court ruling, his allies say, would be done with a GOP tinge.
The speaker issued a statement Thursday to reaffirm his support for full repeal of the Affordable Care Act.
“The only way to change this is by repealing ObamaCare in its entirety,” Boehner said in the statement. “We voted to fully repeal the president’s health care law as one of our first acts as a new House majority, and our plan remains to repeal the law in its entirety. Anything short of that is unacceptable.”
Plus, the plan being debated in the Repeal listserv — as revealed in a POLITICO story Wednesday night — didn’t detail how Boehner planned to address popular provisions they’re looking to preserve; those decisions have not yet been made. The provisions include keeping children on their parents’ health care until 26, encouraging insurance companies to provide coverage to those with pre-existing conditions and keeping the so-called Medicare donut hole closed.
That didn’t stop the staffers and activists on the health care email list from getting pretty heated.
Avik Roy, a Forbes columnist and Manhattan Institute scholar, wrote to the email group that forcing insurance companies to cover folks with pre-existing conditions “would destroy the private insurance market.” Congressional Republicans also want to keep closed the Medicare “donut hole” — Washington-speak for a gap in Medicare’s prescription drug coverage that requires seniors to pay more out of pocket for medicine. Roy said that much-maligned gap in coverage — eventually closed in the Democrats’ law — has “actuarial importance in preventing wasteful drug spending.”
“Brian, if you or someone else can explain the policy rationale of these provisions, I’d love to hear it,” Roy wrote to the email list.
Worth shot back, “[I] don’t leak out of meetings, so I won’t comment on this story.”
Some of these groups — with their legislative scorecards and criticism of leadership — have engendered a good deal of tension among GOP aides. Worth, the leadership staffer, blasted the email group, asking, “when did conservatives start believing everything they read in the press?” He said “House Republicans continue to support full repeal of Obamacare.”
“It’d be great if we all focused on the problem rather than creating an internal firing squad,” Worth said on the email chain. He also took Heritage Action to task, remind them that they’ve supported the House GOP’s repeal efforts in the past.
“So,” he wrote, “that doesn’t matter now?”
Cognizant of the conservative anger, Dave Schnittger, Boehner’s longtime deputy chief of staff, sent a separate email to a small group of fellow leadership aides Wednesday night, saying that, during his weekly media availability, the speaker would “knock … down” the plan that had leaked.
Boehner did not address health care once in his 12-minute news conference. Aides say he was prepared to talk about it — if the issue came up.