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Thomas Massie on New Healthcare Bill: 'It's Going to Be Worse Than Obamacare'

March 22, 2017
Staff

WRITER

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), who has been an outspoken critic of the House's leadership Obamacare replacement, joined Glenn on radio today to discuss what he called the "dumpster fire that we're calling Obamacare-lite." Massie's office has received 275 calls from constituents opposing the bill and only four supporting it. He also shared a very troubling change made to the bill just last night, especially in light of Trump's promised commitment to veterans.

"They made another small tweak . . . when people find out about it they are not going to be happy. If you're a veteran and you could go to the VA, but you don't go to the VA, the tweak they made last night says you can't get the health care subsidies that everybody else gets when they go into the individual market," Massie reported.

The news didn't sit well with Glenn and his co-hosts.

"Oh, my gosh," Glenn said.

"What in the . . . what are they thinking! What is this?" Co-host Pat Gray exclaimed.

The House votes Thursday on the new bill in what will be Trump's first major legislative test.

Listen to this segment from The Glenn Beck Program:

GLENN: Thomas Massie, a critic of the House's leadership on Obamacare replacement bill is joining us now.

Thomas, how are you, sir?

THOMAS: I am doing great. It's a tale of two chambers today here on Capitol Hill.

GLENN: I bet it is.

THOMAS: You know, in one chamber, you've got Neil Gorsuch doing a great job on his confirmation hearings, and Trump looks like a hero because he listened to conservatives and took advice on the Supreme Court nominee. In the other chamber, you've got this Dumpster fire that we're calling Obamacare-lite, where Trump listened to the swamp creatures. And he's taken a hit in his popularity in trying to get people to vote for something that's not good.

GLENN: He's really come out strongly and said, "If you vote against it, you're going to -- you'll lose your reelection."

THOMAS: Yeah, well, he's got the zeal for the deal, and that's okay. But this is a bad deal.

PAT: Yeah.

THOMAS: And the phone calls to my office are 275 opposed to this bill and four supporting it.

JEFFY: There you go.

PAT: That's widespread.

THOMAS: Yeah, pretty wide.

PAT: Congressman, the other thing is the Republicans -- the G.O.P. yesterday just tweaked the provision to crack down on illegal immigrants getting this health care coverage. Right? They took that provision out of the bill.

So they've even done -- they've even done more than the Democrats kind of did with this particular thing because the Democrats kept telling us, no, illegal aliens will not be part of this. And now, as they tried to stop this from happening, it was taken out.

THOMAS: Well, they made another small tweak when people find out about it are not going to be happy. Which, if you're a veteran and you could go to the VA, but you don't go to the VA, the tweak they made last night says you can't get the health care subsidies that everybody else gets when they go into the individual market.

GLENN: Oh, my gosh.

PAT: What in the -- what are they thinking! What -- what is this?

JEFFY: What.

PAT: Wow.

THOMAS: You know, some of the changes they've made, they say, are because of the so-called birdbath.

GLENN: What the hell is that?

PAT: What's the birdbath?

GLENN: I'd like to drown a lot of these birds.

(laughter)

THOMAS: I call it the hogwash. But it's the bird rule in the Senate that's supposed to make the bill, you know, ecumenical -- or amenable to the parliamentarian. But I think they're just using it as an excuse to keep the things they want for the insurance lobby and to take out the things the insurance lobby doesn't want.

STU: We're talking to Congressman Thomas Massie.

Congressman, let me be a cynic here for just a moment. I was looking at the count from -- I think CNN has a web count from this bill. And I think you can lose, what, 21, is it?

THOMAS: That's right.

STU: Twenty-one votes. And the way they had it broken down was they had lost 19, and there were seven who were leaning no. And, man, does it not look to me that this thing is going to line up, and just, they're going to somehow get this through by one vote. The Freedom Caucus, who we're huge fans of, they're not doing the whole, everyone votes the same way thing on this bill, if I'm understanding that correctly. It seems like they're doing everything they can to kind of have this little wiggle room. And at the last second, they'll give a few things away, and they'll clear this by one vote. So that a lot of people, like yourself, who -- and you've been on record for this from the beginning, you know, fighting it, but everyone is going to be able to say, well, I didn't vote for it, but it's still going to get passed.

GLENN: I've seen this on House of Cards.

STU: That's how this works.

THOMAS: Well, let me what they used to do under Boehner. A lot of times, when it was raising the debt limit or, you know, voting for an omnibus, they would -- when conservatives bucked up, they would go over and get Democrats to vote for it. And so they always had this safety margin. But they don't have that with this bill. And so they can -- it really is 21 votes they can afford to lose.

I've got a Whip vote on my i Phone. Hopefully nobody has hacked it yet. But -- as all the hackers now go after my phone. But 29 conservatives oppose this bill. Those are private conversations I've had with them. They're not leaning no, they're no. Twenty-nine conservatives. That's before you count the moderates who are against this bill. And they're not as audible or public in their opposition, but I think there are probably six of them that are hard-nosed and maybe a dozen more that are leaning no on the moderate side. So if this vote were right now absent the -- the kneecap breaking and the arm twisting, they would probably be short 20 votes. But as you say, the next 24 hours, we're going to see a lot of broken kneecaps.

(chuckling)

GLENN: So what happens after this? Let's take it both ways. This passes. What happens?

THOMAS: It's -- it's going to be worse than Obamacare. I tell people, if we're going to do socialized medicine, leave it up to the real architects like Jonathan Gruber. Because we're doing a horrible job of architecting socialized medicine. You cannot keep the requirement that healthy people and sick people pay the same price for insurance and then lose the individual mandate and expect that to work.

GLENN: It won't.

THOMAS: That market is going to go to hell in a handbasket very quickly. And healthy people are going to flee it. And that's my prediction. And we're going to own it. That means prices will spiral upward. And it will be ours to own. And I think the electoral danger here is to the Republicans in passing it, not opposing it. So that's -- I think it's going to be horrible, and that's my prediction.

GLENN: So let's say it doesn't pass and the thing just gets worse and worse and worse. I mean, either way, with -- presented with this, I just don't see the Republicans being able to win anything because if it doesn't past, most likely, it will just sit there and you guys won't do anything. And Obamacare is just -- it's bad. And people are feeling the pain. And they're not going to take it from somebody who had the House, the Senate, and the White House and couldn't fix this. They'll give it to the Democrats, and the Democrats will engineer a single-payer system. And, quite honestly, Donald Trump will sign it.

THOMAS: Well, I think we're being given a false choice here tomorrow, which, you know, they say you have a binary choice, either you pass this or pass nothing. That's a load of bunk. The negotiations actually start when one side says no. And conservatives tomorrow, hopefully there will be enough of us that say no that we can then have a negotiation. And Paul Ryan cannot go to the Democrats and try and architect another version of Obamacare. He has to do this with conservatives. And hopefully, Donald Trump will come and listen to individuals at Heritage and the other conservative organizations, like Freedom Works, that have credibility when we take another crack at this. I don't see Donald Trump as a person who is going to accept failure. If this bill fails tomorrow, we'll come up with a better one.

STU: Are you at all surprised to see him go to bat as hard as he is for this bill? I mean, it doesn't seem -- it's not like this is the bill he ran on. This is clearly a, you know, Paul Ryan type of thing that he just is kind of just getting behind, and I'm surprised to see him throwing his weight around, to try to push through this bill that really didn't -- isn't really similar to what he argued for in the campaign.

THOMAS: Yeah, well, he wasn't big on specifics in the campaign. And I think he believes that if we pass something, he can check this off, put it in the win column and go on to the next battle. You know, he's got a list of things he wants to accomplish.

The problem is I think he's just got the zeal for the deal here. And the deal is not a good deal. He needs to step back and look at it. I just think he's getting bad advice on this one. And I -- the fallout is going to be interesting because I also think he's being misled by Paul Ryan about how many votes there are to pass this thing.

And maybe he'll come to realize that taking advice from Paul Ryan wasn't the best way -- the best thing to kick off his presidency.

GLENN: I just can't believe -- and I don't know how his supporters are going to shake out, but I can't believe Paul Ryan who was, you know, cancer before the election -- he was cancer. Every conservative -- every Republican was like, I got to get rid of Paul Ryan, that he somehow or another is the savior that everybody is listening to or is shouting praises for with Donald Trump.

And I don't know how it's going to shake out because Donald Trump did say he was going to make sure everybody got covered. You want it to go the opposite way than what he does. This is this awful middle ground that we're negotiating. But I don't know how his voters are going to handle it. Because half of his people wanted, you know, Paul Ryan and everybody out. And half of his people wanted more health care from the government.

THOMAS: Yeah. Well, maybe the silver lining in this is that when Trump moves on to tax reform or immigration that he's promised or taking care of the veterans, he will listen to somebody other than Paul Ryan after Paul Ryan drags him through this debacle. And hopefully the American people don't get drug through it. Hopefully this bill fails, and they don't have to be subjected to this experiment in Donald Trump listening to the swamp and coming up with policy.

Hopefully he'll listen to those voices from the outside like he did so well with Neil Gorsuch.

GLENN: I will tell you that the stock market priced in -- you're seeing the stock market cave. The stock market priced in a repeal of Obamacare. They priced in tax cuts. They're now saying that the tax cuts are going to be a lot lower than they thought. And the stock market is on thin ice now because they had priced in all these things, and it doesn't look like some of these things are going to happen. Does the financial situation worry you at all?

THOMAS: Let me tell you something that's false that's being repeated on Capitol Hill. They're saying that this stuff has to happen like clockwork. And if we don't do health care reform, we can't do tax reform. That's absolutely false. If you go back and look at how the Democrats implemented Obamacare, they did a reconciliation bill, literally a week after they did Obamacare so that they could fix it. And they included student loans in that.

GLENN: Uh-huh.

THOMAS: You can put whatever you want in reconciliation. You can double up and put more than one thing in it. It doesn't have to be health care in this reconciliation bill. Tax reform can still happen. It is not linked to this debacle of a health care bill that we're calling Obamacare-lite.

GLENN: Representative Thomas Massie, thanks so much. And thanks for your leadership on this. We're counting on you guys to do the right thing and actually return us to a free market which would be very, very nice.

THOMAS: Well, thank you, Glenn. It's called the walk of shame here in Congress. When somebody votes one way, and then before the vote closes, they twist their arm and get them to walk down to the counter and turn in a different voting card. Hopefully, we won't see too many conservatives take that walk of shame tomorrow.

GLENN: Are you feeling the pressure? I mean, how much pressure is on these guys?

THOMAS: Well, Trump was in Kentucky a day before yesterday, in my state. And the week before that, Pence was there. And Donald Trump was giving rides to Kentucky congressmen on Air Force One. But I noted, I haven't even gotten a ride on Amtrak One yet.

(chuckling)

GLENN: Wow. Wow.

THOMAS: So I think the pressure is on the other members who they think are more likely to switch.

GLENN: Are you concerned that the -- you know, Trump does not forget who was against him. Are you concerned at all that they will campaign against you?

THOMAS: That's not really a concern for me. I've had so many people here in DC -- it would be ironic if he joins the swamp creatures and goes after conservatives back in their districts, but I don't think that's going to happen. I think when this is all said and done, he may be more upset with Reince Priebus and Paul Ryan than he is with the people that supported him in his election, frankly.

GLENN: Thomas Massie, thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Why the White House restoration sent the left Into panic mode

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

Presidents have altered the White House for decades, yet only Donald Trump is treated as a vandal for privately funding the East Wing’s restoration.

Every time a president so much as changes the color of the White House drapes, the press clutches its pearls. Unless the name on the stationery is Barack Obama’s, even routine restoration becomes a national outrage.

President Donald Trump’s decision to privately fund upgrades to the White House — including a new state ballroom — has been met with the usual chorus of gasps and sneers. You’d think he bulldozed Monticello.

If a Republican preserves beauty, it’s vandalism. If a Democrat does the same, it’s ‘visionary.’

The irony is that presidents have altered and expanded the White House for more than a century. President Franklin D. Roosevelt added the East and West Wings in the middle of the Great Depression. Newspapers accused him of building a palace while Americans stood in breadlines. History now calls it “vision.”

First lady Nancy Reagan faced the same hysteria. Headlines accused her of spending taxpayer money on new china “while Americans starved.” In truth, she raised private funds after learning that the White House didn’t have enough matching plates for state dinners. She took the ridicule and refused to pass blame.

“I’m a big girl,” she told her staff. “This comes with the job.” That was dignity — something the press no longer recognizes.

A restoration, not a renovation

Trump’s project is different in every way that should matter. It costs taxpayers nothing. Not a cent. The president and a few friends privately fund the work. There’s no private pool or tennis court, no personal perks. The additions won’t even be completed until after he leaves office.

What’s being built is not indulgence — it’s stewardship. A restoration of aging rooms, worn fixtures, and century-old bathrooms that no longer function properly in the people’s house. Trump has paid for cast brass doorknobs engraved with the presidential seal, restored the carpets and moldings, and ensured that the architecture remains faithful to history.

The media’s response was mockery and accusations of vanity. They call it “grotesque excess,” while celebrating billion-dollar “climate art” projects and funneling hundreds of millions into activist causes like the No Kings movement. They lecture America on restraint while living off the largesse of billionaires.

The selective guardians of history

Where was this sudden reverence for history when rioters torched St. John’s Church — the same church where every president since James Madison has worshipped? The press called it an “expression of grief.”

Where was that reverence when mobs toppled statues of Washington, Jefferson, and Grant? Or when first lady Melania Trump replaced the Rose Garden’s lawn with a patio but otherwise followed Jackie Kennedy’s original 1962 plans in the garden’s restoration? They called that “desecration.”

If a Republican preserves beauty, it’s vandalism. If a Democrat does the same, it’s “visionary.”

The real desecration

The people shrieking about “historic preservation” care nothing for history. They hate the idea that something lasting and beautiful might be built by hands they despise. They mock craftsmanship because it exposes their own cultural decay.

The White House ballroom is not a scandal — it’s a mirror. And what it reflects is the media’s own pettiness. The ruling class that ridicules restoration is the same class that cheered as America’s monuments fell. Its members sneer at permanence because permanence condemns them.

Julia Beverly / Contributor | Getty Images

Trump’s improvements are an act of faith — in the nation’s symbols, its endurance, and its worth. The outrage over a privately funded renovation says less about him than it does about the journalists who mistake destruction for progress.

The real desecration isn’t happening in the East Wing. It’s happening in the newsrooms that long ago tore up their own foundation — truth — and never bothered to rebuild it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Trump’s secret war in the Caribbean EXPOSED — It’s not about drugs

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

The president’s moves in Venezuela, Guyana, and Colombia aren’t about drugs. They’re about re-establishing America’s sovereignty across the Western Hemisphere.

For decades, we’ve been told America’s wars are about drugs, democracy, or “defending freedom.” But look closer at what’s unfolding off the coast of Venezuela, and you’ll see something far more strategic taking shape. Donald Trump’s so-called drug war isn’t about fentanyl or cocaine. It’s about control — and a rebirth of American sovereignty.

The aim of Trump’s ‘drug war’ is to keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.

The president understands something the foreign policy class forgot long ago: The world doesn’t respect apologies. It respects strength.

While the global elites in Davos tout the Great Reset, Trump is building something entirely different — a new architecture of power based on regional independence, not global dependence. His quiet campaign in the Western Hemisphere may one day be remembered as the second Monroe Doctrine.

Venezuela sits at the center of it all. It holds the world’s largest crude oil reserves — oil perfectly suited for America’s Gulf refineries. For years, China and Russia have treated Venezuela like a pawn on their chessboard, offering predatory loans in exchange for control of those resources. The result has been a corrupt, communist state sitting in our own back yard. For too long, Washington shrugged. Not any more.The naval exercises in the Caribbean, the sanctions, the patrols — they’re not about drug smugglers. They’re about evicting China from our hemisphere.

Trump is using the old “drug war” playbook to wage a new kind of war — an economic and strategic one — without firing a shot at our actual enemies. The goal is simple: Keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.

Beyond Venezuela

Just east of Venezuela lies Guyana, a country most Americans couldn’t find on a map a year ago. Then ExxonMobil struck oil, and suddenly Guyana became the newest front in a quiet geopolitical contest. Washington is helping defend those offshore platforms, build radar systems, and secure undersea cables — not for charity, but for strategy. Control energy, data, and shipping lanes, and you control the future.

Moreover, Colombia — a country once defined by cartels — is now positioned as the hinge between two oceans and two continents. It guards the Panama Canal and sits atop rare-earth minerals every modern economy needs. Decades of American presence there weren’t just about cocaine interdiction; they were about maintaining leverage over the arteries of global trade. Trump sees that clearly.

PEDRO MATTEY / Contributor | Getty Images

All of these recent news items — from the military drills in the Caribbean to the trade negotiations — reflect a new vision of American power. Not global policing. Not endless nation-building. It’s about strategic sovereignty.

It’s the same philosophy driving Trump’s approach to NATO, the Middle East, and Asia. We’ll stand with you — but you’ll stand on your own two feet. The days of American taxpayers funding global security while our own borders collapse are over.

Trump’s Monroe Doctrine

Critics will call it “isolationism.” It isn’t. It’s realism. It’s recognizing that America’s strength comes not from fighting other people’s wars but from securing our own energy, our own supply lines, our own hemisphere. The first Monroe Doctrine warned foreign powers to stay out of the Americas. The second one — Trump’s — says we’ll defend them, but we’ll no longer be their bank or their babysitter.

Historians may one day mark this moment as the start of a new era — when America stopped apologizing for its own interests and started rebuilding its sovereignty, one barrel, one chip, and one border at a time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Antifa isn’t “leaderless” — It’s an organized machine of violence

Jeff J Mitchell / Staff | Getty Images

The mob rises where men of courage fall silent. The lesson from Portland, Chicago, and other blue cities is simple: Appeasing radicals doesn’t buy peace — it only rents humiliation.

Parts of America, like Portland and Chicago, now resemble occupied territory. Progressive city governments have surrendered control to street militias, leaving citizens, journalists, and even federal officers to face violent anarchists without protection.

Take Portland, where Antifa has terrorized the city for more than 100 consecutive nights. Federal officers trying to keep order face nightly assaults while local officials do nothing. Independent journalists, such as Nick Sortor, have even been arrested for documenting the chaos. Sortor and Blaze News reporter Julio Rosas later testified at the White House about Antifa’s violence — testimony that corporate media outlets buried.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened.

Chicago offers the same grim picture. Federal agents have been stalked, ambushed, and denied backup from local police while under siege from mobs. Calls for help went unanswered, putting lives in danger. This is more than disorder; it is open defiance of federal authority and a violation of the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.

A history of violence

For years, the legacy media and left-wing think tanks have portrayed Antifa as “decentralized” and “leaderless.” The opposite is true. Antifa is organized, disciplined, and well-funded. Groups like Rose City Antifa in Oregon, the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club in Texas, and Jane’s Revenge operate as coordinated street militias. Legal fronts such as the National Lawyers Guild provide protection, while crowdfunding networks and international supporters funnel money directly to the movement.

The claim that Antifa lacks structure is a convenient myth — one that’s cost Americans dearly.

History reminds us what happens when mobs go unchecked. The French Revolution, Weimar Germany, Mao’s Red Guards — every one began with chaos on the streets. But it wasn’t random. Today’s radicals follow the same playbook: Exploit disorder, intimidate opponents, and seize moral power while the state looks away.

Dismember the dragon

The Trump administration’s decision to designate Antifa a domestic terrorist organization was long overdue. The label finally acknowledged what citizens already knew: Antifa functions as a militant enterprise, recruiting and radicalizing youth for coordinated violence nationwide.

But naming the threat isn’t enough. The movement’s financiers, organizers, and enablers must also face justice. Every dollar that funds Antifa’s destruction should be traced, seized, and exposed.

AFP Contributor / Contributor | Getty Images

This fight transcends party lines. It’s not about left versus right; it’s about civilization versus anarchy. When politicians and judges excuse or ignore mob violence, they imperil the republic itself. Americans must reject silence and cowardice while street militias operate with impunity.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened. The violence in Portland and Chicago is deliberate, not spontaneous. If America fails to confront it decisively, the price won’t just be broken cities — it will be the erosion of the republic itself.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

URGENT: Supreme Court case could redefine religious liberty

Drew Angerer / Staff | Getty Images

The state is effectively silencing professionals who dare speak truths about gender and sexuality, redefining faith-guided speech as illegal.

This week, free speech is once again on the line before the U.S. Supreme Court. At stake is whether Americans still have the right to talk about faith, morality, and truth in their private practice without the government’s permission.

The case comes out of Colorado, where lawmakers in 2019 passed a ban on what they call “conversion therapy.” The law prohibits licensed counselors from trying to change a minor’s gender identity or sexual orientation, including their behaviors or gender expression. The law specifically targets Christian counselors who serve clients attempting to overcome gender dysphoria and not fall prey to the transgender ideology.

The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The law does include one convenient exception. Counselors are free to “assist” a person who wants to transition genders but not someone who wants to affirm their biological sex. In other words, you can help a child move in one direction — one that is in line with the state’s progressive ideology — but not the other.

Think about that for a moment. The state is saying that a counselor can’t even discuss changing behavior with a client. Isn’t that the whole point of counseling?

One‑sided freedom

Kaley Chiles, a licensed professional counselor in Colorado Springs, has been one of the victims of this blatant attack on the First Amendment. Chiles has dedicated her practice to helping clients dealing with addiction, trauma, sexuality struggles, and gender dysphoria. She’s also a Christian who serves patients seeking guidance rooted in biblical teaching.

Before 2019, she could counsel minors according to her faith. She could talk about biblical morality, identity, and the path to wholeness. When the state outlawed that speech, she stopped. She followed the law — and then she sued.

Her case, Chiles v. Salazar, is now before the Supreme Court. Justices heard oral arguments on Tuesday. The question: Is counseling a form of speech or merely a government‑regulated service?

If the court rules the wrong way, it won’t just silence therapists. It could muzzle pastors, teachers, parents — anyone who believes in truth grounded in something higher than the state.

Censored belief

I believe marriage between a man and a woman is ordained by God. I believe that family — mother, father, child — is central to His design for humanity.

I believe that men and women are created in God’s image, with divine purpose and eternal worth. Gender isn’t an accessory; it’s part of who we are.

I believe the command to “be fruitful and multiply” still stands, that the power to create life is sacred, and that it belongs within marriage between a man and a woman.

And I believe that when we abandon these principles — when we treat sex as recreation, when we dissolve families, when we forget our vows — society fractures.

Are those statements controversial now? Maybe. But if this case goes against Chiles, those statements and others could soon be illegal to say aloud in public.

Faith on trial

In Colorado today, a counselor cannot sit down with a 15‑year‑old who’s struggling with gender identity and say, “You were made in God’s image, and He does not make mistakes.” That is now considered hate speech.

That’s the “freedom” the modern left is offering — freedom to affirm, but never to question. Freedom to comply, but never to dissent. The same movement that claims to champion tolerance now demands silence from anyone who disagrees. The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The real test

No matter what happens at the Supreme Court, we cannot stop speaking the truth. These beliefs aren’t political slogans. For me, they are the product of years of wrestling, searching, and learning through pain and grace what actually leads to peace. For us, they are the fundamental principles that lead to a flourishing life. We cannot balk at standing for truth.

Maybe that’s why God allows these moments — moments when believers are pushed to the wall. They force us to ask hard questions: What is true? What is worth standing for? What is worth dying for — and living for?

If we answer those questions honestly, we’ll find not just truth, but freedom.

The state doesn’t grant real freedom — and it certainly isn’t defined by Colorado legislators. Real freedom comes from God. And the day we forget that, the First Amendment will mean nothing at all.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.