Why Is McConnell Pushing the House Bill So Quickly?

Jonathan Chait: “Following the unveiling of the House Republican plan to shrink Obamacare dramatically, two surprising things happened. The first is that the conservative-movement apparatus has lined up rapidly against the bill…. The second surprising thing is that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced his intention to jam the House bill through the Senate quickly. Rather than develop its own bills through committees and the normal debate process, McConnell declared he plans to bring it directly to the Senate floor. Neither of these decisions makes a great deal of sense on their own, and they make even less sense in conjunction with each other.”

“While McConnell’s plan might be necessary in order to keep the party’s legislative strategy on track, it is highly and even delusionally optimistic, given the state of his vote count. It also runs counter to the Senate’s institutional culture.”

“This raises a question: Is it designed to violate the Senatorial ego? And thus to fail? Neither the conservative revolt nor McConnell’s plan make a lot of sense if you view them as strategies designed to yield the most right-wing health-care policy that is attainable. They do make sense as a strategy designed to insulate Republicans from failure.”