A Mostly-Ignored Congress

This continues my fictional blog about president-elect McCain.

In all the chaos surrounding the presidency, a lot of the major news sources have neglected their coverage of congress. Knowing that they would have one of their own as president, the Republicans in the house of Representatives have taken up two initiatives to move the country in what they consider to be the right direction.

First, they have neutered the independent ethics board which is tasked with keeping them in line. Many Republicans have complained that the ethics board is partisan in its investigations, and that they have no right to look their accuser in the eye. Therefore the ethics board no longer has the right to pursue a complaint without permission from the House Ethics committee. President-elect McCain, upon being briefed on this action, has scheduled a meeting with Speaker of the House Paul Ryan to discuss the issue.

Second, the House of Representatives has put forth a bill to repeal ObamaCare, the sitting president's signature healthcare bill. Because ObamaCare's individual provisions are popular, but the bill itself is not, the House has put a delay into the bill, so that the repeal will not occur until 2019, the year after the midterm elections. This gives them three years to write a replacement, or one year to smooth over the preventable deaths of millions of Americans who will be stripped of healthcare.

President-Elect McCain has put forward a piece of legislation called the Empowering Patients First Act. According to John McCain's Senate website, where he first posted the outline of the bill last year, the EPFA would:

• Establish "age-adjusted tax credits" instead of subsidies
• Continue to protect individuals with pre-existing conditions
• Eliminate the "individual coverage" mandate
• Make extensive use of "Economic incentives"
• Gut the ability to sue doctors for malpractice
• Allow people to buy healthcare coverage which does not cover as much
• Eliminate state boundaries for healthcare coverage
• Encourage people to spend less by making them pay for their own healthcare.

Proponents of the EPFA say that it will lower costs, and increase the number of insured individuals. Critics of the plan say that it would crumble, like the Texas plan after which it was based, because it lacks the individual mandate.