Shields and Brooks on Spicer stepping down, GOP health care bill fumble

DAVID BROOKS, The New York Times:

Yes, I don't think it's dead.

I think, from what I hear, they're leaning on Mike Lee, the senator who has been a no vote who is the decisive no vote, to change his mind, to buy him out with something and offer him something. And then they figure, once they get him on board, there are probably another Republican 15 senators who would like to vote no, but they don't want to be the one person who kills it.

And so the feeling, if you can get Mike Lee, you can get some of the others. And they might pass it. I wouldn't say it's likely, but I think — I just think it's too early to say it's dead now.

The second thing to say is, Mitch McConnell has two parts of his job. The one is to create a process where reasonable legislation gets promoted. And the second is to whip for that legislation.

I think he did an abysmal job on one job and a pretty good job on job two. As Mark said, you have got a plan with 16 percent approval. Nobody in the Senate likes it, including the Republicans. They all hate having to vote for it. And he still got 48 votes. That's kind of impressive.

But the underlying problem is, you have a chance to change, to reform health care. There are a lot of conservative ideas to reform health care. And it would solve some problems. You could pick some things that a lot of people would like. You could have catastrophic coverage for the 20-odd million people that are still uninsured after Obamacare.

You could do a lot of — offer a lot of things to a lot of people and do it in a conservative way. But that's not what this Republican Party does. They just say, we want to cut Medicaid.

And they're unwilling to talk about anything positive, though there are some things in the bill. It's just, what can we take away from you? And what can we take away from the poor and the needy and the children?

And it's a publicity and a substantive disaster area that they're just trying to live with.

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