There still remains the one big question.

Here we are on the day of House vote, uncertain of the outcome of whether Obamacare will be repealed, will be repealed and replaced, or will endure because Republicans cannot agree. It seems unfathomable that Republican majorities in both houses cannot find the spine to do the big thing, the one thing their voters and candidates alike professed must happen: the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, a misnomer all the more evident by its imminent collapse resulting from its un-affordability.

For seven years the GOP bemoaned that Harry Reid wouldn’t allow a vote on repeal, and even if it had passed, that the law’s namesake in the Oval Office who would veto the futile effort. “Give us the Senate!” they intoned. “Give us the White House!” they implored. They got both and now look.

DJT was nominated in July: like it or not, he would be the party’s standard bearer against HRC. The GOP platform was unambiguous on repeal and replace. Mind you, it was originally simply “repeal”; “replace” crept in to the conversation to blunt the hue and cry of you can’t just take it away and leave the masses uncovered! The women! The children!

And then “replace” got embellished: it’ll be cheaper, it’ll be better, more choices, less government control, and so forth. How was this to be achieved? Nothing of substance was proffered by those touting replacement throughout the campaign. Why was that? Why was there not a think tank of lawmakers at work crafting this elusive “replacement” legislation months before the election? Why wasn’t the President-elect handed a bill that was fully endorsed by the majorities on November 9th?

Possibly because they knew then what we’re seeing now: the very structure of the ACA is “mined” with political pitfalls for those seeking its demise. Premiums, deductibles and co-pays were, by design, all slated to escalate in ’17 and ’18; only an infusion of subsidies would stabilize it, coupled with a bailout by any other name, to keep the insurers engaged and the exchanges open. Both inevitabilities would be anathema to Republicans, but very doable for spendthrift Democrats.

And therein lies the beauty of the ACA: the GOP is saddled with a lose-lose proposition. Pony up the new costs as laid in for the post-second term Obama years, or let the mainstream media pick you to death with horror stories of denied coverage for the “most vulnerable among us”. Children without care and the dying elderly will be the laid at the GOP doorstep. The biased reporting bolstered by skewed statistical argument will shout down all reason, and in the ’18 midterms Republicans will be cast as the curmudgeons who took away an entitlement. They’ll be left explaining to the mirror on Fox News that the ACA was unsustainable under its financial house of cards while the woes of the newly disenfranchised will be covered wall-to-wall by the opposition with glee. Conversely, the in-fighting among Republicans over whether to fund the monstrosity in order to avoid this voter backlash will splinter the party. Death by a thousand cuts, or by hari-kari, is still death.

So, back to the big question: why in the world did the Republicans wait until after the inauguration to begin working on this contentious legislation? Why did they not afford a political novice coming into office a fully-vetted, fully-approved alternate to the ACA that they knew had to be tethered to any repeal effort? How, instead, could they think a hastily-convened bill that conservatives feel is too costly, and liberals feel is too restrictive, would possibly pass both Houses?

Because they didn’t think Trump would win. They had already braced for the fight with a Clinton White House over ACA spending rather than a cohesive plan to repeal and replace. And now DJT is handed this flawed bill to champion at his own peril, as his party can’t even guarantee they’ll vote for it.

That is what’s called getting “swamped” by the swamp.

3/13/2017
12:05pm