The demise, or maybe not, of Trumpcare is a big deal. The number one initiative of the new administration fell flat on its face. The Trump/Ryan effort was sabotaged not by Democrat crybabies, although none of them intended to vote for the bill in the House of Representatives, but by certain elements of Trump’s party. The bill would have passed with a simple majority, which the Republicans have in the lower house.
For seven years these same people have been bitching about the shortcomings and cost of Obamacare. Now the G.O.P. controls the White House and both houses of Congress, and Republicans can’t agree on anything. The ultra right wing brain trust made it impossible to gain passage effectively treating Trump like their former archenemy, Barrack Obama. Most of these bozos will likely face opposition from their constituencies in the 2018 elections given that they campaigned on repeal of O’care in 2016.
The talking heads (especially the liberal ones) are now saying that Trump’s administration is dead meat and incapable of rallying from such a huge setback. But perhaps they are overlooking some important issues.
The biggest one is that Democrats still own the crappy law commonly known as Obamacare. They continue to spin the program by indicating that more Americans now have health care insurance than ever before. That’s true but it mostly involves new Medicaid insurees who have coverage at no cost. Why did Obama need to spend trillions to create a massive bureaucracy for the needy? He could have just granted health care to this group of people through the existing Medicaid bureaucracy.
But he decided to force Americans (including many young people) who didn’t want coverage to sign up for it or pay a fine. These policies are expensive and inflexible and are used to defray the costs of Medicaid recipients.
Everybody expects O’care to implode in the coming months. Premiums are going to increase, deductibles will go up, doctors will drop out of the system and fewer insurance companies will provide coverage. This means that Democrats will re-take responsibility for bad health care in this country. They will soon have to come back to Trump to bail them out- wishful thinking on the part of the writer.
Seriously Democrats are going to take a hit for the continuing problems of O’care. Politically they should have supported T’care, thereby transferring responsibility for it to Republicans- wishful thinking again.
If in fact Trump is unable to push through his agenda items, what will he do? I’ve spoken to some who think he might just resign. He’ll wake up one morning and conclude that Congress is hopelessly dysfunctional and 60% or more of Americans don’t like him, his attitude, his hair or his negotiating style. Next stop, back to Trump Tower.
In Trump’s defense I still maintain that O’care is a dud and destructive to most who participate in it. The tax code needs to be reformed. A wall of some sort needs to be built to prevent more illegal immigration. ISIS needs to be defeated. Jobs need to be created. Trade deals need to be renegotiated. And so on.
Trump haters may get their way if the president fails, but they will also get a truly screwed up government.