I don't see any attempt to interview Republicans to explain why they began conceiving the bill the way they did with "just 13 Republican Senators behind closed doors" as is alleged. This looks like an editorial hit-piece disguised as a "factcheck" to me, it only gives one point of view.
One part of it that doesn't pass the smell test for me:
Another tool intended to promote transparency and open governance is an independent audit of the financial ramifications of a bill by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO). While numerous bills eventually coalesced into what became the ACA, the CBO provided numerous reports on multiple aspects of the law ahead of its vote in the Senate.
The CBO has been criticized for having a liberal bias. They have been criticized for giving more speculatively bad numbers to Republican bills, while on Obamacare (or ACA), for example, they projected optimistically low numbers, that just since late 2013 when Obamacare launched, have been more than double what the CBO projected it would cost!
I suspect Republicans (in the initial phases of drafting repeal/replace healthcare legislation) wanted to draft it among themselves to get their ducks in a row before they went public with it. Because
they know as soon as anything is announced it will be picked apart unfairly by the 80% liberal media (
93% liberal among Washington reporters). Remember what happened with
Paul Ryan's announced plan to save Medicaid. Its details were picked apart and demagogued by Democrats in the year or so before the 2012 election.
That said, certainly (as I already said in posts above) I want Republicans to set a better example, and when their bill comes to a vote (which it hasn't yet) I want it to be fully available for public view, online and elsewhere, before the vote. I want the Republicans to get it done right, not just done fast. And to set a better example than the Democrats.
But since the Republicans haven't gotten to the floor yet for a vote, I think this Snopes hit-piece isn't a fair comparison to the Republican efforts. Snopes also doesn't address the blatant dishonesty of depending on "the stupidity of the American voter", "if you like your healthcare plan you can keep your healthcare plan", and "you have to pass it to see what's in it". Since none of these aspects can be spun with a liberal bias by Snopes, they are selectively ignored.
And I don't recall any votes by House and Senate Republicans held over weekends of Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's, the way Democrats rammed through Obamacare when the voters weren't watching.
Also:
Just sayin'.
