The stunning defeat of the Obamacare replacement leaves President Donald Trump and the Republican leadership in Congress with one clear option. And it is exactly the opposite of what Trump said after last week’s debacle: “The best thing we can do, politically speaking, is let Obamacare explode.”
If the GOP is going to be a governing party, and not just the raucous opposition, it has an opportunity and a duty to repair the flaws in the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare. Contrary to the hot talk from Trump, it is not exploding. But it needs work.
Premiums on the individual market are rising faster than they should in some parts of the nation and insurers are skittish about the future. There are 1,000 counties nationwide with only a single insurance-company option for individual plans.
Yet the Affordable Care Act still covers tens of millions of people who lacked coverage before it passed, mostly due to Medicaid expansion, and health-care inflation has been lower than before its passage.
The House proposal, called the American Health Care Act, likely would have covered 24 million fewer people, would have bankrupted older Americans and handed the superwealthy a massive tax cut. After at least 50 votes over seven years to repeal Obamacare, that’s the best they could do?
U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Wash., showed principled leadership in breaking with her caucus over this potentially disastrous replacement.
Now is the moment for leadership in Congress, if that is still possible. In an ideal world, Republicans would partner with Democrats and make overdue fixes. Those words, however, seem hollow even as they appear on the page. If this moment should fail to happen, states should take advantage of some flexibility offered under the existing law and focus on changes to the individual market where there is the most concern and turmoil.
House Speaker Paul Ryan conceded, “We’re going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future.” Health care is a quarter of the American economy, and a cornerstone of American society. Letting it “explode” is not just terrible governance, it is inhumane.
— The Seattle Times
