Repeal and Replace?
Not the Donald, though maybe that will come in time, sooner than we think.
But today’s failure is epic.
Turns out you can say no to the Donald.
The president who was seeking to take away health care from 24 million people just couldn’t get the deal done.
The man who prides himself in being the master negotiator couldn’t get the majority of Congress to commit what I call “medically-assisted political suicide.”
And in the end, even the president had to realize it was better to cut his losses and pull the bill before a vote.
Immediately, he started to blame the Democrats. But for what?
For making sure that millions stay insured with essential health care they need?
“Let Obamacare explode,” Trump said from the White House after the aborted vote.
Fact is, Obamacare is not exploding. No doubt there are problems with ACA, but mostly it’s due to the insurance and drug companies that want to assure profitability rather than people’s health. That’s one area that needs fixing. Under a more universal broad pool, with the largest possible number of insureds who can spread the risks of health care, Obamacare would work better. That would be an emulation of Medicare, a single-payer plan. That’s the answer to many of the problems with ACA.
Republicans don’t like to admit that Obamacare was a compromise to begin with. And now it’s working like a compromise, with some people upset, and many happy they finally have some coverage.
But how do you control costs? Or streamline it?
The replacement, Trumpcare, wouldn’t have done any of that.
It would have cut off care and insureds and decimated everything, It would have left the country in a bigger health care mess than you can imagine.
It’s a costly lesson for Trump who is learning that you can’t run the country like a business.
Profit and dollars aren’t everything.
You have to care about the people.
In the end, it was their voices as happy Obamacare consumers that mattered the most.