ACA repeal: out of the ashes, more ashes

When Republican efforts to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act failed, more than once, President Trump – who made Obamacare his chief target in the 2016 presidential campaign – seemed ready to let it go. He never really understood it, had no plan of his own, and had gotten what he wanted out of the issue – namely bombast – without having to deal in details, which he hates. And while Republicans in Congress made great show of their repeal efforts, some of them seemed ready to move on, too.

After all, their own “replacement” plans were deeply flawed, with the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office figuring 20 million or more people would be left uninsured under the GOP replacements. To boot, polls began to show that more people favored Obamacare than opposed it. Some 22 million people had gotten health insurance under the ACA, after all, and millions more had to look at it when employers started trimming benefits.

But now, thanks to Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, there’s a new Republican-led plan to repeal and replace, though replacement isn’t much and would dramatically cut the Medicaid program and eliminate federal funding for Planned Parenthood, which is a broad-based women’s health organization that is not, as some in the GOP’s right want to believe, mainly an abortion provider.

So here we go again.

Graham, deeply and passionately in love with his own voice, just can’t control himself when it comes to this issue, and he seems to have fallen hard into the trap that afflicts many in Congress: he talks to his partisan colleagues but doesn’t spend much time talking to folks back home or to anyone he perceives as on the other side. Graham and some of his mates seem oblivious to the fact that Obamacare isn’t nearly the issue for the American people that it is to them. So badly do they crave one more opportunity to erase a popular president’s signature accomplishment that they ignore the harm it will do to the poor with the Medcaid cuts, for one example.

And, Graham and Cassidy are presenting their proposal as urgent and in need of quick – probably on a straight partisan vote – action. Many’s the legislation done in haste that proves foolish in time, and sometimes in a very short time.

It’s hard to believe these senators, who ought to be more savvy, are ignoring all the blowback their colleagues have gotten in town hall meetings with constituents on the poor performance of Congress. And they’re apparently blind as well to poll numbers showing their party’s president is historically unpopular and is prone to embarrassing outbursts over Twitter that could cost him and them political support in a matter of minutes. Have they forgotten that many of them are up for re-election next year, and that a big mistake on health care reform could sweep the Republican majorities in the House and Senate right out of office?

If so, they’re likely to get a reminder in November 2018.

This story was originally published September 19, 2017 at 10:30 AM with the headline "ACA repeal: out of the ashes, more ashes."