For seven years, we have been hearing from the GOP that Obamacare was a disaster waiting to happen and it needed to be repealed. We all agreed with that. We knew that Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Jonathan Gruber and many others involved with the one sided Democratic dismantling of the health insurance industry lied to the American Public. “Like your Doctor, you can keep your Doctor”, “Like your plan, you can keep your plan” were bold faced lies. The Affordable Care Act was far from affordable for more people than it helped. It was packed with taxes from medical devices to real estate transfers and penalties for most anyone who was not interested in participating in the forced purchase of health insurance.
So here we are with a Republican President, a Republican House and a Republican Senate and we cannot even muster a repeal vote, much less a replacement bill. You have to ask yourself what in the world have they been doing for seven year – just complaining? But forget the seven years, since November they knew this opportunity would come. It was promised to the American people for over a year of the campaign.
For all that time, nothing was done to be ready for today. Did they just think that it was accomplished because they had passed legislation that Harry Reid stopped? Did they think that all of the GOP was so anxious to get the repeal done that nothing else mattered?
It is embarrassing to watch them defend themselves, try to tell us all the negotiations and political wrangling between the more conservative Freedom Caucus and the more moderates was normal. Horse crap.
President Trump, Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell completely misplayed this monumentally important work and did so in a very public way. They deserve the anger of the American public who was counting on them to do what they promised. The past five months was the time for the factions to come together negotiate in private and come to a consensus on the repeal and replace.
Understanding that some of the replacement parts need to happen under the hand of Secretary Price and others will need the 61 votes in the Senate. 61 votes in the Senate is a very heavy lift all by itself since the Democrats are now strengthened by the GOP weakness.
This failure demonstrates that the strength of the administration is not as powerful as was perceived and make no mistake the political capital that was spent brings many members into peril in the next election cycle – another reason why we need term limits but that is a discussion for another day.
Chuck Shumer has been handed his first major victory as Minority Leader and believe me he will parlay it every time he can.
Making America Great Again is becoming harder every day and not necessarily at the hands of the liberals and progressive but by the self-inflicted wounds of the Republican Party. So sad.