Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Boehner's Decision: Betrayal Or Sacrifice? Opinions Show Speaker Is Still Embattled
The New York Times: Speaker John Boehner Quits The Arena
With Mr. Boehner’s decision to retreat and the right wing claiming victory over his ouster, some Republicans seem to think the right wing might drop the Planned Parenthood fight and approve a budget extension bill this month in order to concentrate on the looming leadership fight. This, of course, would be the height of hypocrisy since far-right Republicans have been howling that defunding Planned Parenthood is a matter of life and death. ... If nothing else, this intramural brawl makes it ever clearer that congressional Republicans are incapable of governing themselves, much less the nation. (9/25)
The Wall Street Journal: Boehner’s Speaker Sacrifice
John Boehner’s resignation as House Speaker, and from his seat in Congress, is an act of personal sacrifice and an education in the limits of political power when government is divided. The question now is whether Republicans will reboot with new leadership, or indulge in more disunity and dysfunction. ... Mr. Boehner made his share of mistakes as Speaker, and the biggest was trusting Mr. Obama to bargain in good faith. He entered solo negotiations with the White House, told his conference to wait and see, and behind closed doors even cut preliminary deals on modest tax and entitlement reform—not once but twice. Mr. Obama suddenly raised his demands each time and then ambushed Mr. Boehner publicly. These double-crosses damaged his credibility among conservatives. (9/25)
Los Angeles Times: Boehner's Resignation Delights Conservatives, But It's Bad News For The Republican Party
The abrupt decision by John A. Boehner to step down as speaker of the House and resign his seat in Congress has elated the bitter-ender conservatives who have made his life miserable for virtually his entire tenure. But it’s bad news for those — including Republican members of Congress — who recognize that Boehner’s right-wing critics were living in a fantasy world. In that parallel universe, the Republican majority could ignore the fact that a Democrat occupied the White House and that the rules of the Senate militated against them enacting their agenda of repealing Obamacare, reversing President Obama’s executive actions on immigration and, more recently, defunding Planned Parenthood. (9/25)
The Washington Post: Mr. Boehner’s Resignation Is A Political Cop-Out
House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) insisted on Friday that he was resigning in order to forestall a tough vote on his leadership and “protect the institution” of the House. Protecting the institution, he said, is a speaker’s primary job. We respect his devotion. But a speaker’s primary responsibility is to the nation, not the House. And what the nation needs is a Congress willing to make compromises in the national interest — compromises that Mr. Boehner may have favored but rarely had the stomach to promote. (9/25)
The New York Times: The G.O.P., After John Boehner
During President Obama’s first two years in office, his party controlled the House and for a time had a supermajority in the Senate. Almost entirely on their own they enacted a nearly $1 trillion stimulus bill, Obamacare and Dodd-Frank financial regulations. Not for the first or last time, alternative suggestions from Republicans were dismissed out of hand. Following that, the American people elected Republicans to the majority in the House. And Mr. Obama’s liberal platform ground to a halt. Spending actually went down. Republicans, led by Speaker Boehner, provided the check and balance voters had demanded. But somewhere along the road, a number of voices on the right began demanding that the Republican Congress not only block Mr. Obama’s agenda but enact a reversal of his policies. (Eric Cantor, 9/25)
Politico: Boehner Betrayed His Party
But take a look what the House has done this year and it’s not hard to understand conservatives’ frustrations with the Speaker’s leadership: a permanent “doc fix” that increases Medicare spending over the next two decades by $500 billion and took crucial leverage for Medicare reform off the table forever; a House-passed reauthorization of No Child Left Behind despite the objections of conservatives advocating reforms to eliminate Department of Education mandates. Not a single Republican ran on these priorities in 2014 .... After President Obama’s reelection, Speaker Boehner told ABC’s Diane Sawyer that “the election changes” the GOP’s approach to Obamacare. “It’s pretty clear that the president was reelected, Obamacare is the law of the land,” Boehner said. While he might have been previewing the Chamber of Commerce’s new strategy, he certainly wasn’t echoing the sentiment of his rank-and-file members or the party’s conservative base. (Michael A. Needham, 9/25)
Bloomberg: John Boehner's Biggest Problem
[D]uring Barack Obama's presidency, [congressional Republicans] mostly haven't emulated their Gingrich-era predecessors. .... The one policy on which they led was overhauling Medicare, where Representative Paul Ryan got congressional Republicans to support reform and then the party's presidential candidates followed. But in 2014, Republican leaders discouraged candidates from running on ideas of their own and instead urged them to campaign against Obama's. Since taking control of Congress, they haven't voted on conservative proposals to deal with health care, taxes or higher education. They've telegraphed that they're planning to wait for a presidential nominee to supply a platform. While they wait, congressional leaders including Boehner have tried to get budget bills passed on time and acted on the various priorities of business groups. That M.O. inspires neither conservatives nor voters generally. (Ramesh Ponnuru, 9/25)
Bloomberg: For Boehner, It Ends In Tears
Why now? Boehner had faced down spitting-mad legislators in his caucus before, as he ricocheted between the establishment and Tea Party members, with the latter preparing to take the country to the brink of a government shutdown this month over their demand to defund Planned Parenthood. Always hungry for Boehner's scalp, the 40 firebrands in his caucus have been aboil over the failure of the party, in control of both Houses, to repeal Obamacare. (Margaret Carlson, 9/25)
