Trumpcare

So now we are told that if Congress does not pass the bill tomorrow, Trump will drop it and move on to something else. I thought Trump was supposed to be a winner. When Obama was getting Obamacare passed, there were months of review and negotiation. The president and Congress tried to line up support both in Congress and among the general public for the bill.

They made changes, and worked with various constituencies to get what they needed to get a bill passed. That sounds to me like a winner. What doesn’t sound like a winner is to walk away if you can’t get everything you want and get it now. That sounds very much like a loser. Seriously, if they really wanted to get a replacement passed for Obamacare, they would look at the objections to the new bill, negotiate with the opponents, and find enough common ground to build a consensus on.

A winner doesn’t walk away just because things aren’t going their way. A master negotiator will negotiate and find commonalities among the needs of the stakeholders. They would get on a bully pulpit and convince the voters that this is the best solution. But it is already obvious that the only people for whom this is the best solution are the insurance companies and the most wealthy Americans.

We already know the new bill would cause some 24 million people to lose insurance. We already know that for the poorest people and the older people costs would rise significantly. We know many important things like preexisting conditions, maternity coverage, and many other types of women’s coverage would be eliminated. We know funding for medical care for poor people would be slashed. We know there would be massive tax breaks for the wealthiest 10% of the populations.

The latest poll I saw said the new bill had the support of only 17% of voters. Criminy, Obamacare had far more support both when it passed and most of the time since. Members of Congress have been deluged by their constituents telling them not to vote for this bill. Physician groups, hospital groups, and AARP all oppose this bill.

When he ran for office, Trump said he would get a replacement for Obamacare that would have more people covered, for less money, and with better care. Instead he is pushing a bill which seems to do exactly the opposite. Perhaps oddly enough, the people who would be most hurt by this bill are people who voted for Trump.

A smart man, upon seeing both the effects of the bill and the opposition to it, would have called for major changes, or would quietly have disavowed himself from it. Trump has done neither, but then again, he is more bluster than smarts, quite apart from what he claims. One can only hope that Trumpcare goes down in flames.