Seems to me we're going full-circle on this. There was talk before Trump was even inaugurated that it might make more sense to do a quick ObamaCare repeal and then embark on a longer process of crafting new legislation, as needed, to fix what's still wrong with American health care - which is a lot.
Republicans across the board seemed to prefer doing repeal and replace all at once, but it's getting more dicey by the day to say with confidence they can pass any sort of bill. Remember, even if the Senate bill passes, they still have to go to conference committee to iron out their differences with the House version and then come back and get majorities to support the conference report. You think that's a slam dunk?
If Republican Senators are unable to pass what they are working on now, they should immediately REPEAL, and then REPLACE at a later date!
So if they can't do it all at once, then it's gut check time.
What would you prefer, Republicans?
Keep ObamaCare in place and claim you tried your best to replace it?
Or repeal it, and force the issue by making it absolutely mandatory that you pass something?
President Trump has made his position known:
If Republican Senators are unable to pass what they are working on now, they should immediately REPEAL, and then REPLACE at a later date!
Some of the media are predictably playing up the "flip-flop" angle, because Trump said earlier in the year that he wanted to do repeal and replace all at once. But that's a cheap shot, and an irrelevant one. So what if he preferred repeal-and-replace months ago? If Congress can't get it done, then you have to make a decision what's the best way forward.
And by advocating repeal-only now if it comes to that, Trump does establish a principle here that's important. A lot of people believe that Trump doesn't really care that much about repealing ObamaCare, and would like to just cross it off the list and move on to things he really cares about. By taking this position, assuming he follows through on it, he's making it clear that he cares very much about repealing ObamaCare, and that he has no intention of letting Congress off the hook on the issue if they fail this time around to pass a replacement. He intends to keep the pressure on them to do whatever they can to ultimately get to the final goal - which is that ObamaCare is gone and something much better ultimately takes its place.
It's not a foregone conclusion that they can't do both this time around. Let's see what happens after the July 4 recess as various factions of the Senate Republican caucus try to hammer out a deal. But Trump is right. If they can't do it all at once, they need to make the repeal of ObamaCare irreversible so there is no option of leaving things as they are. There's a lot that can be done to make health care in the United States better, but none of it is possible if you don't get rid of ObamaCare first.
Do it all at once or two it in two parts. But do it.
Seems to me we're going full-circle on this. There was talk before Trump was even inaugurated that it might make more sense to do a quick ObamaCare repeal and then embark on a longer process of crafting new legislation, as needed, to fix what's still wrong with American health care - which is a lot.
Republicans across the board seemed to prefer doing repeal and replace all at once, but it's getting more dicey by the day to say with confidence they can pass any sort of bill. Remember, even if the Senate bill passes, they still have to go to conference committee to iron out their differences with the House version and then come back and get majorities to support the conference report. You think that's a slam dunk?
