Speaker Paul Ryan's status and agenda at risk in Obamacare repeal vote

WASHINGTON – Along with the vast political stakes for his party and president, the dramatic House showdown over health care is a test of Speaker Paul Ryan’s ability to deliver on the promise of unified Republican rule.

“We as a party have been an opposition party for 10 years … now, in three months time, we have to go from being an opposition party to being a governing party,” Ryan told Wisconsin talk-radio host Jay Weber on Wednesday.

“Paul Ryan is all in on getting this passed. His prestige is on the line,” said his GOP colleague from Wisconsin, Jim Sensenbrenner. “If this one fails, the ability to deliver on the next big (issue) is going to be significantly impaired.”

Ryan is calling Thursday's scheduled vote repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act his party’s “rendezvous with destiny.”

But it is also the sternest measure by far of his 16-month-old tenure as speaker, and of his leadership style, salesmanship, deal-making skills and capacity to corral a GOP caucus united against Obamacare but divided over what should take its place.

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Winning House passage Thursday would be a huge but provisional victory. The bill would still face daunting odds in the Senate.

A defeat in the House, however, would damage Ryan’s speakership and undermine his far-reaching conservative agenda, which for political, parliamentary and budget reasons hinges on early repeal of Obamacare.

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Losing this vote “makes the speaker look weak,” says Matt Green, a Catholic University political scientist and expert on the office of House speaker. “It empowers skeptical groups in his party, particularly the (hard line conservative) Freedom Caucus, and emboldens them to challenge Ryan on future bills. It could arguably worsen the relationship between president and the speaker."

Green added, "I am sure that Ryan — and other speakers have done this — is talking to some members and saying, ‘If this goes down, I lose and we all lose. So help a guy out here.’ ”

Ryan’s challenges have included a politically explosive issue (health care), a tortuous multi-pronged legislative path (complicated by the Senate’s filibuster and budget rules), and the much heavier lift of forging a real-life replacement law rather than what Ryan calls the “fake opportunities to kill this law” the party attempted when President Obama was still in the White House.

The GOP plan is not polling well, and independent studies have suggested it could cost many older enrollees in rural GOP districts thousands in insurance subsidies.

“House Republicans should wake up. They should not walk the plank!” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., declared Wednesday.

In Ryan’s home state of Wisconsin, a poll by the Marquette Law School released Wednesday showed only 28% of registered voters supported a Republican replacement of Obamacare, and 60% supported either keeping Obamacare or keeping and improving it.

A small faction of GOP conservatives remains ideologically opposed to the bill, saying it doesn’t go far enough in undoing the current law.

“This is really a defeat of Paul Ryan,” Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said, predicting the bill would go down. “He’s going to have to give conservatives a seat at the table.”

But Ryan, who has a history of winning legislative debates within his own party, continued to talk up his prospects, and the vital backing of President Trump.

His hope — and possibly most powerful political argument — is that Republicans simply can’t afford this kind of defeat in the early stages of their monopoly on power in Washington.

“It will be a fundamental broken promise” if the bill fails, Ryan said Wednesday on Hugh Hewitt’s radio how. “There is no more prominent promise any Republican has made over the last seven years than this one.”

Republican Tom Cole, an ally of Ryan’s, said “I think you have to go back to square one and rethink your entire legislative schedule” if the bill fails.

Green, the political scientist, said he thought Ryan had shown political savvy in how he had pushed for an early vote, tried to thread the needle in his party, and worked to piece together a majority.

But repealing Obamacare may prove to be a hard promise to keep.

“The speaker knows that what’s on the line is the Republican majority’s ability to deliver on its campaign promises,” said Sensenbrenner, who noted that Ryan has taken complete ownership of the bill.

“He put his name on it. He knew that he would get a bump if it passed, particularly in terms of the issues to come,” Sensenbrenner said. “But he also was taking the risk.”