The spectacular failure of Trumpcare, Trump and McConnell - By Jennifer Rubin
July 19 at 9:15 AM
Gosh, if only Republicans had the nerve to take health-care coverage away from millions of Americans! That seems to be the bizarre reaction of Republicans disappointed that the GOP Senate is not willing to go back to the pre-Obamacare world, return nearly a trillion dollars in tax cuts to the super-rich and destroy Medicaid as a viable safety net (but don’t worry, that last part was just pretend!). The right-wing critics whine that Republicans are prisoners of the status quo. Well, if the alternative is something worse than the status quo, senators should plead guilty.
If there is anything less politically astute than GOP members of Congress, it is those egging them on from the peanut gallery who think that the promise for seven years was “repeal but not replace.” The goal was not to make as many people as possible lose health-care coverage or to reinstitute barriers to coverage for the hard-to-insure. It was to replace Obamacare with something better. Now, Republicans surely were dreaming if they imagine that there was a magic formula to provide all the benefits of Obamacare with none of the costs or defects; but if they could not find a mutually acceptable alternative, then they did the responsible thing in first refusing to do no (more) harm.
At least President Trump’s base isn’t bemoaning the evisceration of Medicaid, the loss of protections for those with preexisting conditions and the slashing of subsidies for the individual exchanges. Whatever right-wing purists were selling, the country — including Trump’s base — has never wanted to buy. The latest NBC-Wall Street Journal poll finds that “12 percent of Americans living in the counties that fueled Donald Trump’s win in the 2016 presidential election support the Republican Party’s efforts on health care.” Twelve. Right-wing radio talk-show hosts, TV pundits and think-tank gurus who have never run for office, held office or been responsible for the results of their white papers might consider that they have badly misunderstood the concerns of Americans, including those who voted for Trump and cannot be discounted as part of the “fake news” conspiracy.
The GOP is now in a state of intellectual and political disarray, the result of a president who lacked the understanding to lead a major legislative effort and of congressional leaders who thought they could push something, no matter how faulty, through the House and Senate simply by shaming members who had previously demanded Obamacare’s repeal.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2017/07/19/the-spectacular-failure-of-trumpcare-trump-and-mcconnell
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