WASHINGTON—Late in the day, I took a stroll over to the House side of the Capitol to get the latest bird's-eye lowdown on the continuing attempt to do something—anything!—about the Affordable Care Act, which, to conservative eyes at least, is becoming distressingly popular out in the land. For the last few days, there were negotiations and late-night meetings among various Republicans to try and craft something—anything!—that simultaneously will satisfy the extremist loons of the Freedom Caucus, not ask House Republicans to commit ritual suicide at the polls in 2018, and come remotely close to passing the Senate. They even called upon the political magic of Vice President Mike Pence. Nothing helped because nothing can. Camels, gang. Needle's eye.

"They have," said one Democratic lawmaker, "some serious opposition among themselves."

Leading it, of course, is Mark Meadows, Republican of North Carolina, and one of the leading Freedom Caucusers. He was hanging around the Speaker's lobby, chatting about how hard everyone was working to shove the camel through the eye of that needle. But, as he spoke, Meadows barely contained the twinkle of a guy who knows he's got Paul Ryan's cojones in his pocket, and also that he is immune to being bluffed by the folks down at Camp Runamuck. That's why every iteration of the new "plan" that leaked in the past week has been more and more ruinous to American families who are just hanging on.

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"People talk about what they heard and what they think they heard," said Meadows, talking about the meeting with Pence. "I think what people heard was that they (the White House) want a deal, and when you say you want a deal, you're willing to latch onto whatever's most important to you. That's just human nature.

One of the latest jerry-rigged bits of legerdemain emanating from the folks shoving at the hind end of the camel is the notion that they will keep the ACA's very popular protection of people with pre-existing conditions, but that they will also allow insurance companies to jack up the rates for those people. Tied into this is the notion of "high-risk" pools, which are beloved of Paul Ryan, who hasn't had to sweat health insurance since he was a teenager. Alas for the camel-shovers, we have had some experience with these pools at the state level.

In 2008, for example, the not-yet-insane state of North Carolina gave them a try. As healthcare analyst Adam Searing pointed out, the experiment failed. There was a year's waiting period for anyone who was uninsured and had a pre-existing condition. There was a $1 million cap on lifetime benefits. And the pools covered only one-tenth of one percent of the state's population. But, I guess those people were pretty damn free.

They're going to recess without doing anything about this, which ought to make those local town-hall meetings must-see TV again. "There are people in their caucus who think that what they put up a couple of weeks ago was too generous," said the veteran Democrat. "They can't vote for this. There are, maybe, 20 moderate Republicans in the House anymore. They come over to commiserate from time to time."

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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