Brought the Mahalaptop home today. The geeks had to do a factory restore, meaning it was pretty much wiped, and I’m having to reinstall software now. The problem apparently was caused by the Windows 10 upgrade I did a few weeks ago, so if you haven’t done that yet, hold off until they get more bugs fixed.

I see Canada has nixied Stephen Harper in favor of the more progressive and also more handsome Justin Trudeau. Yay.

Let’s look at what’s going on with Obamacare, starting with the newest effort by Republicans to repeal it.

The repeal legislation, Restoring Americans’ Healthcare Freedom Reconciliation Ac, is being brought through a legislative procedure known as budget reconciliation, which only requires a simple majority to advance in the Senate and thus could overcome Democratic opposition to land on President Obama’s desk. However, the maneuver is only workable, under parliamentary rules, if it reduces the deficit and a full-on Obamacare repeal would add $353 billion to the deficit, the Congressional Budget Office has found. So Republicans are targeting only certain aspects of the law — such as the individual and employer mandates — that, if repealed, would reduce the deficit. It would also almost certainly be vetoed by the president.

However, according to Heritage Action, this is not good enough.

Heritage Action for America — the lobbying arm of the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation — issued a statement threatening to consider the vote on the House bill, expected Friday, a key vote for conservative members.

In the statement, communications director Dan Holler accused GOP leadership of “putting their members in a terrible position,” as the legislation leaves in place some aspects of Obamacare, and argued that by voting in favor of the bill, Republicans are “undermining any serious effort to repeal the law in 2017.”

Actually repealing it would require Republican majorities in both the House and Senate, plus the White House. Well, they’re going to keep the House for awhile. However, my understanding is that the Dems are in pretty good shape to take back the Senate. And I sincerely think the White House is out of reach for Republicans. So good luck with that, Heritage Action.

Heritage Action is complaining because the partial repeal bill leaves the exchanges and medicaid expansion intact. If Heritage Action had half a brain, it would know that ending the individual mandate all by itself would kill the exchanges, and the rest of Obamacare as well, but we’re talking about wingnuts here.

Oh, and Fun Fact — states that didn’t expand Medicaid are paying more for it.

Insurance co ops also are in trouble. Nonprofit insurance co ops were allowed under Obamacare as a weak alternative to the private option.  Republicans saw to it that the co ops would be fragile, at best; see Richard Mayhew for an explanation. Since some co ops are failing, Republicans are trying to kill the entire program.

In other news, Jim Webb dropped out of the presidential race. Bye, Jim Webb.