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President Donald Trump wasnt physically there, but his presence was felt from beginning to end by Republican activist and party donors who gathered for an evening of celebration at the Trump-owned Mar-a-Lago Club.

VIP ticket-holders got a surprise visit from First Lady Melania Trump. The Friday night dinner was held in the opulent Donald J. Trump Grand Ballroom. The Lincoln Day event party favor was a signature Trump Make America Great Again red ball cap placed on the chair of each of the 692 attendees.

And the chocolate mousse bomb dessert was topped with an image of Lincoln wearing a MAGA hat.

In the midst of all-things-Trump, the guided splendor of Mar-a-Lago, and the company of fellow Republicans a combination of people who volunteered time to work in the trenches of the 2016 campaign or donated money to the partys efforts spirits were ebullient

It was a long way, in distance and mood, from the turmoil in Washington, where hours earlier Republicans suffered the collapse of their health care legislation, began pointing fingers of blame at one another, and wondered how deeply the Republican president and Congress were damaged.

Not so at Mar-a-Lago, the resort that Trump turned into a cold-weather getaway when he was a New York real estate developer and now uses as a presidential retreat.

The moods uplifting, exciting, said Tami Donnally, vice chairwoman of the Palm Beach County Republican Party. What we wanted to accomplish tonight was getting together and celebrating.

She said there was no reason the failure of the Obamacare repeal a signature campaign promise from Trump and the Republicans elected to the House and Senate should cast a pall over the gathering. I see the bigger picture, she said. A setback, yes. Something to be sad, depressed [about], no way.

As about 200 people who wrote large checks for the pre-dinner VIP reception mingled in a smaller ballroom in another part of the resort complex, there was a sudden rumbling in the crowd, according to people who were present. As people craned their necks to see what was happening, they saw the first lady.

There was whooping and hollering, from some, said former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley of Palm Beach County. It was exciting. Shes a gorgeous lady. Shes so poised.

Only a handful of people organizing the dinner knew ahead of time she would stop by. She was gone in just a few minutes. It was a surprise, said Bob Sutton, chairman of the Broward Republican Party, one of several people who described the scene and shared smartphone pictures with reporters. (A handful of reporters and photographers was kept far away from the VIP venue, Mrs. Trump could be seen from a distance when she walked up and when she left, accompanied by Secret Service agents.)

She went to an area roped off from the VIP guests, greeted the crowd and spoke to Gov. Rick Scott and the keynote speakers for the evening, Lynette Hardaway and Rochelle Richardson, the Trump supporting YouTube duo who appear online as Diamond and Silk.

She was gorgeous. She said Hi everybody, said Margi Helschien, former president of the Boca Raton Republican Club who now runs the conservative group America First. It was a total surprise. It was like, Oh my goodness!

Two attendees said they had a vantage point from which they saw the Trumps 11-year-old son, Barron, outside on a patio.

Many painted as bright a picture as possible over the Republican failure to keep the pre-election promise to repeal and replace Obamacare made repeatedly last year by candidate Trump and the partys candidates for U.S. Senate and House during the 2016, 2014, 2012 and 2010 election campaigns.

A vote was canceled Friday when the president and House Speaker Paul Ryan concluded they didnt have enough votes to pass what some labeled Trumpcare. Helschien said it was a topic of conversation.

A lot of people were talking about it. A lot of people were upset, she said. She downplayed the notion that its a catastrophe with lasting effects. We took a little bit of a step sideways. Were going to regroup. Its not the end of the world.

Sid Dinerstein, former chairman of the Palm Beach County Republican Party, insisted it wasnt a big deal because were winning every day. Bob Sutton, chairman of the Broward County Republican party, saw it as a learning opportunity. And Anita Mitchell, a former Palm Beach County party chairwoman, said it comes with the territory for a party in control. Governings messy.

Florida Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam, who once was in the upper echelons of the House Republican leadership, said it was disappointing and a setback, but would be overcome eventually. Theres time for Republicans to dust themselves off, get back on the horse, and get it done right.

Foley was less sanguine.

I just think it was poorly orchestrated, Foley said. This is depressing to me.

Foley said health care is a potent issue that, if done wrong, could send members of Congress to defeat in the next election. He said it would have made more sense for his former colleagues to have tackled something with broader support such as cutting taxes. Especially since Republicans didnt have an Obamacare replacement plan ready to roll out on Day One.

He said theres at least a temporary price for whats seen by many as a failure for Trump. It doesnt look good.

The people who attended the event snapped up the $300 a head tickets. The event sold out two months ago, said Michael Barnett, chairman of the Palm Beach County Republican Party.

The attendees activists who can form the volunteer backbone of campaigns and potential major donors are vital constituencies for candidates, and the dinner attracted multiple high profile likely 2018 candidates.

He touted the virtues of capitalism after a recent Florida poll found many young people thought socialism is as good or better; praised Scott, with whom he hasnt always been politically in sync; and urged party members to stay pumped up to ensure victories in 2018. Enthusiasm matters, he said.

Scott praised the president; talked about spending a day last month at the White House (He doesnt eat the most healthy food); and criticized Republican rivals in Tallahassee who want to scale back government subsidies for businesses and tourism marketing.

Before Friday nights dinner at Mar-a-Lago, he avoided a small group of reporters. He didnt participate in the traditional entrance of elected officials. After speaking and picking up the Statesman of the Year award, he left early.

From beginning to end, the absent Trump got the crowd most energized.

Early on, Barnett reminded diners that the country has a new president. They burst into applause and cheers.

At the end, keynote speakers, Diamond and Silk, made their presentation in the style of the videos that have made them an Internet sensation. The South Caroline sisters often speak in rhyme and offer a comment and response routine. Hardaway, who is Diamond, says something positive about Trump, and Richardson, who is Silk, responds with facial contortions and brief words of praise.

Before leaving the stage, Hardaway asked the crowd, Are we on the Trump train?

She and Richardson then proceeded to lead the crowd in a repeated call and response. When I say choo choo, you all say all aboard.

aman@sunsentinel.com, 954-356-4550

Read more:
Republican donors, activists gather at Trump's Mar-a-Lago | Video - Sun Sentinel

The one question you never hear journalists ask Republicans is why?

Why do so many Republicans want to throw 24 million struggling Americans off the health insurance rolls? Why does the allegedly populist Trump administration submit a budget that slashes job training programs for the very same jobless white folks he claimed to represent?

Why cut Meals on Wheels, child care, after-school programs and learning centers for the poor, affordable housing and aid to the homeless? Why zero out occupational safety training and economic growth assistance in distressed communities in Appalachia and the Mississippi Delta (more Trump constituents)? Why slash legal aid and medicine and food for the sick and hungry in the developing world, among many others?

Journalists ask Republicans about policies, mechanisms and money, but those are technical questions when the real and simple question they should be asking is a moral one: Why do Republicans seem intent on hurting the most vulnerable among us?

Unfortunately, the answer may just be, to paraphrase Clint Eastwoods Dirty Harry on why serial killers murder: because they like it.

Sure, we know the rote answers. Republicans love to talk about choice and freedom and markets and deficit reduction and personal responsibility and all sorts of ideological claptrap that seems to slap principle on what really is punishment. At best these are smokescreens, at worst traps that have succeeded in entangling the media, Democrats and Americans generally in arguments about tactics or priorities rather than arguments about motives and their real-life consequences.

There was a time when Republicans worried they might be perceived as being on the wrong side of morality, even if that worry didnt move them to get on the right side. They used to dress up their cruelty not only in those old Milton Friedman free market clichs but in new ones like compassionate conservatism, because even as they knew there was nothing compassionate about it, they also knew that most Americans werent buying into letting the poor fend for themselves. That wasnt American. That wasnt human.

Some of that window dressing remains in the Trump era, but not much. Republicans still feel obliged to declare that their health care plan will cover more Americans at a lower cost, but everyone knows they are lying. By one report, when the White House ran the numbers, it predicted 26 million would lose health coverage 2 million more than the Congressional Budget Office figure.

Speaker Paul Ryan was more than sanguine about those sufferers. He flashed a vulpine smile in recounting the CBO numbers, actually saying they were better than he had thought, which is to say that the American Health Care Act, as they call it, may have been intended to deny coverage, just as Trumps budget clearly was intended to hurt the most vulnerable, including those vulnerable supporters of his. To my mind, these werent collateral effects. They were the very reasons for the AHCA and the budget.

So, again, why? What kind of people seem dedicated to inflicting pain on others?

It is not an easy question to answer, since it violates all precepts of basic decency. I suspect it comes from a meld of Calvinism with social Darwinism. From Calvinism, conservatives borrowed both a pinched and unsparing view of humanity as well as the idea of election namely, that God elects some folks for redemption, which, when rebooted for modern conservatism, has an economic component. Plain and simple, rich people are rich because they are better than poor people.

By the same token, poor people are poor because they are worse. This is Gods edict, so to speak. (The so-called Calvinist revival has an awful lot in common with Trumpism.) From social Darwinism, they borrowed the idea that this is the way the world should be: winners and losers, those who can succeed and those who cant. It is a world without luck, except for tough luck.

From this perspective, conservatives may not really think they are harming the vulnerable but instead harming the undeserving, which is very different. In effect, conservatives believe they are only meting out divine and natural justice. Its convenient, of course, that this justice turns out to be redistributive, taking resources from the poor and middle class and funneling them to the wealthy, who happen to be the benefactors of conservatism as well as its beneficiaries. (Just note how Republicans howl about redistribution when it is the other way around.) Where many of us see need, they only see indolence and impotence. It is, by almost any gauge, not only self-serving but also plainly wrong moralistic rather than moral.

But if Republicans see their moral duty as denying help to the weak, that denial is part of a larger and even uglier social equation. In a recent New York Times column, Linda Greenhouse recalled an exchange 30 years ago between Robert Bork and Illinois Sen. Paul Simon during Borks confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court. Simon asked Bork about a speech he had given two years earlier, in which the judge said:

when a court adds to one persons constitutional rights, it subtracts from the rights of others.

The senator asked, Do you believe that is always true?

Yes, Senator, Judge Bork replied. I think its a matter of plain arithmetic.

Sen. Simon: I have long thought it is kind of fundamental in our society that when you expand the liberty of any of us, you expand the liberty of all of us.

Judge Bork: I think, Senator, that is not correct.

Remember that although (or perhaps because!) his Supreme Court nomination failed, Bork is a conservative deity. As far as conservatives and Republicans are concerned, to give anything to the less fortunate is to subtract it from everyone else a zero-sum game between the rich and the rest of America.

This isnt politics. This is bedrock conservative philosophy. And it may have no more eager avatar than Donald Trump, who is all about winning and losing. Trump has always professed to want to blow up the system. He is like a child knocking down a tower of blocks, only in his case the blocks are American democracy and decency.

But with the AHCA and his Draconian budget, one that even a few Republicans no doubt fearing voter retribution blanched at, Trump may not have blown up the system so much as he has blown the Republicans cover. He even seems to have emboldened some of them to come out of hiding and admit that any assistance for the poor is too much.

This we always suspected. What is harder to parse is the joy conservative Republicans seem to get in hurting the weak, making the GOP not just the punishment party, but also the schadenfreude party. Or put in different terms: Conservatism didnt create meanness, but meanness sure created conservatism.

We might be able to understand that sense of smug moral and social superiority from doctrinaire Republicans who spout Ayn Rand and detest those whose hurdles are the highest. We all know hate can be intoxicating. But these past two weeks Ryan and Trump have been gambling on something else that many of their fellow Americans agree with them, that these Americans share a deep and abiding hostility to those who need government assistance. Whether Ryan and Trump are right may very well determine the fate of this administration and the country.

So the second big question, alongside why Republicans and conservatives seem to luxuriate in cruelty, is why any other ordinary American would. There have been predictions on the left that once those ordinary Americans feel the sting of losing health care or job training or work safety regulations or clean water and air, they will revolt, and Trump will be dust. But there is no certainty to this. A recent New York Times piece on this very issue indicated that at least some Trump supporters know they will suffer from his budget and still support him.

Another Times article, by Eduardo Porter, quoted a Harvard economist suggesting that the white working class feel they get so little benefit from the so-called welfare state that they see things through the same zero-sum prism as Bork, Ryan and Trump. Whatever the poor gain, the white working class loses.

When you think how much the government does for so many across such a wide spectrum, you wonder what world these people are living in. Indeed, a signal achievement of conservatism, decades in the making, has been pitting the have littles against the have nots while the have lots stayed above the fray. Of course, by that calculation, you might think the struggling white working class would be on the loser side of the ledger, sentenced to defeat by their own deficiencies in our Darwinist world. But in another neat trick, Republicans have managed to convince them they are victims of twin demonic forces, government and liberal elites, that disrupt the natural order of things. In this way, many Republicans helped turn many Americans into brutes and our American community into a state of nature. There couldnt have been a President Trump without it. There couldnt have been an ACHA or a Trump budget either.

This, then, is a vital moment for American morality and, to the extent the two are intertwined, American democracy. You cant pretend Trump and his Republican pals are trying to achieve good ends by different means. They arent. You cant act as if they give a damn about the millions of poor and working-class Americans. They dont.

But even as their cover is blown, someone needs to keep asking them the fundamental question again and again and again: Why?

More:
Has the Trump budget blown Republican's cover? - Salon

House Speaker Paul Ryan speaks to reporters after a meeting with President Trump, who came to Capitol Hill to rally GOP lawmakers behind the Republican health care overhaul. J. Scott Applewhite/AP hide caption

House Speaker Paul Ryan speaks to reporters after a meeting with President Trump, who came to Capitol Hill to rally GOP lawmakers behind the Republican health care overhaul.

Republicans will be tested today on the strength of party unity in the Trump era and their party's ability to deliver on the promises they've made to the voters that sent them here.

"This is our chance and this is our moment. It's a big moment," House Speaker Paul Ryan told reporters earlier this week. "And I think our members are beginning to appreciate just what kind of a 'rendezvous with destiny' we have right here."

The moment is particularly defining for Ryan, the reluctant speaker who is facing the toughest legislative battle of his nearly 20-year congressional career. "One of the reasons I don't want this bill to fail is I don't want Paul to fail," said Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, an ally of the speaker who supports the bill.

The speaker has put the full weight of his office behind passing legislation that goes much further to repeal and replace key pillars of Obamacare, to remake Medicaid into a block grant program that caps federal spending. The entitlement program predominantly helps the poor and currently has an open-ended funding stream.

It's the kind of conservative reform that Ryan has jokingly said he's dreamed about since his keg party days, but it might not be enough even with Republicans in control of both chambers of Congress and the White House.

The House Freedom Caucus, a bloc of about 30 hard-line conservatives, maintain going in to today's scheduled vote that they have enough members on their side to defeat the bill. Their opposition has not softened, despite continued efforts by President Trump, Vice President Pence and their senior White House aides to grant concessions and cajole lawmakers from districts Trump won by big margins last November.

"We're being asked to sign a blank check and hope it works out," said Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., a member of the Freedom Caucus, "And in the past that hasn't worked out real well for this process, so I think we're right to be skeptical."

Perry was one of about 25 Freedom Caucus members who huddled with Vice President Mike Pence and White House adviser Kellyanne Conway on Wednesday. It didn't change his vote. Conservatives like Perry want the bill to go even further to repeal President Obama's health care law. Specifically, these conservatives want assurances the final bill would ultimately repeal the essential health benefits included in the Affordable Care Act, which cover 10 categories of health services insurance plans must cover, including prescription drugs and prenatal care.

"We want free market competition and how can you have free market competition when the government is mandating what's going to be included?" Perry said. Conservatives argue that eliminating the essential health benefits will allow insurance companies to offer cheaper insurance plans with more tailored coverage. Opponents say it will only increase out-of-pocket costs for consumers.

Conservatives also received some political cover from outside conservative activist groups like Heritage Action and FreedomWorks, which came out in opposition to the bill.

The network of political action groups funded by Charles and David Koch, wealthy libertarian-minded donors who have not supported Trump, are putting money behind their opposition to the bill. Two Koch-funded groups, Americans For Prosperity and Freedom Partners, announced last night they would establish a seven-figure fund "to stand by principled lawmakers who keep their promise of fully repealing Obamacare by opposing the American Health Care Act (AHCA) unless there are significant changes." It amounts to a promise of protection for members who might fear a primary challenge for breaking with Trump.

As the day unfolded yesterday, it became clear that conservatives were not the only weak link in the vote count. With every new "yes" vote announced, a "no" vote would appear. Reps. Lou Barletta of Pennsylvania and Steve King of Iowa announced they would support the bill on Wednesday, but their support was offset by fresh opposition from lawmakers including Don Young of Alaska, David Young of Iowa, and Frank LoBiondo of New Jersey.

The trio of opponents are mainstream Republicans, the kind of rank-and-file members party leaders can usually rely on to pass their agenda. But the policy in the GOP bill, the American Health Care Act, would disproportionately affect older, poorer Americans the very constituents who make up many GOP lawmakers base of support back home.

For instance, LoBiondo said in a statement that his South Jersey district and its retirees would suffer under AHCA. "Three South Jersey counties have more than 30% of their residents receiving Medicaid assistance. Medical professionalsour hospitals, doctors, nurses are opposed," he said.

The speaker focused on more moderate members of the GOP, working members during House votes on Wednesday and holding one-on-one meetings in his office throughout the day.

"If you don't recognize how much is on the line, you haven't been paying attention," said Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla. He supports the bill and, like many lawmakers, remained optimistic that the votes would come together to pass it. Cole even suggested they might have to win the vote on the floor. "You never know about these things until you actually get to the vote," he said.

With five vacancies in the 435-member House, Republicans can lose 21 votes and still pass the bill. Every Democrat is expected to vote against it. House Republicans enjoy one of their largest majorities in decades, so the 21-vote cushion is much larger than past GOP-controlled congresses have enjoyed.

Cole said most Republicans were aware of the importance of this vote: "It's a very consequential vote. It really is: 'Can you govern or can't you?' "

For their part, Democrats are unified against the bill, which undoes President Obama's signature domestic achievement. Former Vice President Biden returned to Washington to voice his opposition to the bill at a rally outside the U.S. Capitol.

"Look, folks, here's the deal: When you cut to the chase, we're talking about eliminating close to a $1 trillion in benefits that go to people to be able to meet the commitment we made that health care is a right, and we're transferring all of that to the wealthy," Biden said. "That's what this is all about, it's about a transfer tax, basically. Eliminating the Affordable Care Act means eliminating an awful lot of things that people need."

If the House approves the bill on Thursday, the thrill of victory will be short-lived. The bill still needs to pass the Senate, and it faces a new round of opposition and legislative hurdles in that chamber. The bill then would need to back to the House again to approve any Senate-passed changes before it could go to Trump's desk.

Read more here:
In Final Hours, GOP Leaders Scramble For Votes On Bill To Gut 'Obamacare' - NPR

Members of the conservative congressional Freedom Caucus vow to defeat the GOP health care bill. (Inform)

The GOP House health care plan has lots of moving parts, but dont fret. We at PolitiFact have been analyzing the legislation since its release.

Heres what you need to know.

The first thing to keep in mind is that the GOP bill, the American Health Care Act, actually retains some important parts of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.

Staying in place are provisions that prohibit insurance companies from denying coverage for a pre-existing health problem, like cancer, and a provision that prohibits insurance companies from raising premiums based on a persons health. Kids can continue to stay on their parents health insurance until they turn 26. Insurance marketplaces where people browse for coverage stay in place. And regarding Medicare, Republicans retain long-range spending limits that they once railed against.

The Republican bill also continues to subsidize premiums to make insurance more affordable, but the size of those subsidies and who gets them changes significantly. The Congressional Budget Office said the average subsidy would be about 60 percent of what people would get under Obamacare. This part of the GOP plan delivers one of the top two spending reduction moves in the overall bill, the CBO said.

To help people who buy insurance on their own, the American Health Care Act uses refundable tax credits based on the following schedule:

Under age 30: $2,000

Between 30 and 39: $2,500

Between 40 and 49: $3,000

Between 50 and 59: $3,500

Over age 60: $4,000

No household would get more than $14,000 worth of credits and the credits taper off for single filers making over $75,000 and joint filers making over $150,000.

The GOP bill makes one other key change that affects premiums. It would allow insurance companies to charge older people up to five times more than younger ones. Under Obamacare, the limit is three times more. Combine that with the new subsidy approach and, by the CBOs estimate, the impact on older, poorer Americans would be large.

A 64-year-old making $26,500 would be responsible for $14,600 in premiums under the American Health Care Act. With the Affordable Care Act, the same person would pay $1,700. A 40-year-old making the same amount would also pay more, but his or her bill would go from the same $1,700 to $2,400 under the GOP bill.

Republicans counter that the CBO analysis fails to take into account future GOP plans to change the health care system through overhauling regulations and additional legislation.

Aside from premiums, Obamacare offered cost-sharing to defray the out-of-pocket expenses, such as deductibles and co-pays, for people making between 100 and 250 percent of federal poverty. The American Health Care Act eliminates that additional assistance.

Another big change in the American Health Care Act is the end of the insurance mandate. Today, nearly everyone must buy insurance or face a tax penalty. The Republicans do away with that, although their bill would allow insurance companies to charge a one-year 30 percent premium fee for those who had failed to buy insurance when they could have.

Big changes for Medicaid

The bills Medicaid provisions deliver the other large basket of savings for the federal budget. One of the key balancing acts for Republicans involves the 31 states that chose to expand Medicaid under Obamacare to include people making up to to 138 percent of federal poverty. The standard cut off is 100 percent.

Part of the deal was Washington would cover at least 90 percent of the costs for people in the expansion group. The typical federal match is more in the 50 to 75 percent range. The American Health Care Act takes several steps to eliminate the higher rate.

States that havent expanded Medicaid by March 1, 2017, would not be able to get the more generous federal match if they expand Medicaid eligibility. Those that had expanded would see the higher match end as of January 2020, with one exception: The bigger federal share would continue for anyone in the expansion group as of December 2019, so long as that person never had a break in eligibility longer than one month.

2020 marks another game changer in Medicaid. That year federal payment to states would shift to a per person basis with limits on the growth in those payments going forward. Alternatively, states would have the option to shift to a block grant approach, but just for the non-expansion participants. A block is what it sounds like -- a lump sum payment that is independent of the number of people in the Medicaid program or the cost of their care. Either way, the changes put more on the shoulders of the states, either to control costs or raise taxes.

Lastly, states would have the option to impose a Medicaid work requirement for anyone who isnt pregnant, disabled or elderly.

Tax changes

At the same time the House bill cuts spending, it also cuts revenue for the federal government. Obamacare helped pay to cover the poor and working poor by taxing wealthier Americans, insurance companies and medical device makers. The Republican bill does away with all of those as of January 2017.

Taken together, the most valuable of the tax cuts are the ones for individual taxpayers making over $200,000 and couples making over $250,000. They have been paying more in Medicare taxes and another charge called the net-investment tax. The combined total tax reduction is more than $275 billion over a 10-year period, according to the CBO.

The American Health Care Act also increases tax incentives for Health Savings Accounts and makes more health care expenses tax deductible.

Other important elements

The American Health Care Act creates a $100 billion fund over nine years to help states cover a range of contingencies, including caring for the most expensive patients, lowering the premiums and out-of-pocket costs for people 50 to 64 years old and other health care related expenses.

The bill also aims to prevent government funding for abortion. It bans all money for Planned Parenthood and blocks the use of tax credits to pay for insurance plans that include abortion or abortion services.

For states that choose the Medicaid block grant option, family planning would no longer be a mandatory covered service.

For anyone who wants all the details, we recommend the side-by-side comparison work of the Kaiser Family Foundation.

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A cheat sheet

What's in the American Health Care Act?

Wednesday, March 22, 2017

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PolitiFact's guide to the Republican health care bill - PolitiFact

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House Set To Vote On Republican Health Care Bill NPR A vote on the Republican health care plan in the House is scheduled for Thursday. Some very conservative Republicans say they'll vote against it. Facebook; Twitter. Google+. Email. Get The Stories That Grabbed Us This Week. Delivered to your inbox ...

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House Set To Vote On Republican Health Care Bill - NPR