I really don't care one way or the other as long as it gets done. Trump suggested separating the two because it's appearing increasingly difficult to get a majority of Senate Republicans to agree on a replacement, and he doesn't want ObamaCare to survive by default for lack of a consensus on what comes next.
If McConnell can repeal and replace in one fell swoop, fine by me. But sometimes he says things that make me wonder if he is really committed to success:
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has rejected President Donald Trump’s advice to first repeal President Barack Obama’s health care law and then replace it later with something else.
McConnell says the current health care bill remains challenging but “we are going to stick with that path.”
Trump tweeted earlier Friday that if Republicans could not reach a consensus on the current bill, they “should immediately REPEAL, and then REPLACE at a later date!” Several Republican senators signed on to Trump’s plan.
But McConnell is showing no interest in that strategy. He told a gathering of Republicans in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, that “failure has to be possible or you can’t have success.”
McConnell says, “It’s not easy making America great again, is it?”
What the hell is that supposed to mean?
I'm all about the philosophy that you don't fear failure, because if you do you'll be too timid about taking the risks that are necessary to get you to success. But I don't see what that has to do with the situation at hand, nor with the dichotomy between Trump's suggestion and McConnell's preferred path.
Failure is the antithesis of success, but success is not heightened because the prospect of failure was also heightened. The path to success involves minimizing the prospects of failure as you go. The reason Trump suggested separating repeal from replace is that it's starting to look like pairing the two is increasing the likelihood of failure. Contrary to what McConnell said in Kentucky, that's not a feature. That's a bug.
Repealing ObamaCare first would not lessen the chances of a replacement bill coming later. It would virtually guarantee it because most people understand the destructive effects of ObamaCare require some further action to restore free markets and consumer choice - not to mention things we've needed since before ObamaCare, like tort reform and the ability to purchase health insurance across state lines. If we repealed ObamaCare now, new health care legislation would become an absolute must on the nation's agenda.
But does McConnell's statement about the possibility of failure, along with his apparently condescending statement about making America great again, indicated that he is even interested in success here? McConnell is a longtime creature of the Beltway culture, which has long scoffed at the idea that you can solve big problems or fundamentally change the direction of the country. It's too hard. It's not realistic. That's not the way things work in this town.
You know the mindset. McConnell is steeped in it. He wouldn't insist on keeping the filibuster if he wasn't, since it's the single biggest obstacle to the real legislative changes this country needs to solve its biggest problems. So does Mitch McConnell really believe the weird statement that "failure has to be possible or you can't have success"? Or does he prefer failure?
I really don't care one way or the other as long as it gets done. Trump suggested separating the two because it's appearing increasingly difficult to get a majority of Senate Republicans to agree on a replacement, and he doesn't want ObamaCare to survive by default for lack of a consensus on what comes next.
If McConnell can repeal and replace in one fell swoop, fine by me. But sometimes he says things that make me wonder if he is really committed to success:
