President Donald Trump and Speaker Paul Ryan lost bigly as their bill to replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA, aka ObamaCare) failed. While both Trump and Ryan tried to emphasize how very close they’d come to passing this cruel bill, they were not able to recast the attempt as anything other than a critical failure.
The three reasons why they failed to pass were incompetence (shown by Trump and his White House and by Ryan and the Republican Congress), the effectiveness of the country-wide resistance movement by voters, and the egregious provisions of the bill, especially the proposed cancellation of insurance for 24 million people. At a time when so little seems logical, it is reassuring that a resistance movement by voters can make a difference, even if the bill was bad and ineptly handled.
The three reasons why they failed to pass were incompetence (shown by Trump and his White House and by Ryan and the Republican Congress), the effectiveness of the country-wide resistance movement by voters, and the egregious provisions of the bill, especially the proposed cancellation of insurance for 24 million people. At a time when so little seems logical, it is reassuring that a resistance movement by voters can make a difference, even if the bill was bad and ineptly handled.
Both Ryan and Trump spoke about their learning process. The tone was, “sure we’re disappointed, but don’t worry – we’re just getting started and all will be fine”. Paul Ryan may hope that people look sympathetically at the difficulty in moving from the opposition party to the governing party, but it seems more likely that people have instead seen that Ryan appeared weak and frankly, not very wise. He did not understand how to handle his own House members or how to work with Trump. Most of all, he failed to understand he should listen to the many Americans who were speaking out about how ObamaCare had helped them.
Trump, too lost big on this. While he has self-promoted himself as the ultimate deal maker and real estate builder, his real business model was based on recognition that he was a failed builder. He rented out his name to properties built by others, but did not need to deal with details. Trump doesn’t like details. For the promise to repeal and replace Obamacare immediately, the promise that was made repeatedly throughout his campaign, Trump rented out his name to Paul Ryan – hoping that he and others would handle the details and the heavy lift.
To make matters worse for Trump, he made it clear that, even as the bill was destined to fail, his “command” was to hold the vote. When Ryan decided that he had to pull the bill, he showed the world that he wasn’t afraid of Trump. Trump reverted to his usual theater tactics, calling Robert Costa of the Washington Post to get the word out that he was pulling the bill. He must have hoped that we would miss that Ryan was aware of a separation of powers.
The Republicans who have been so irate about how ObamaCare was flawed offered an alternative that would deprive millions of health insurance and would be punitive to the elderly, women, and the poor. The bill was another perverse attempt to take from the poor to give to the rich. The GOP may work for months and years to come to harm ObamaCare, but they need to accept that ObamaCare changed the country. Now, Americans believe that healthcare is a right, not a privilege; and they believe their government should work to assure that right.
More importantly than even the failure of this egregious bill is what it portends for future Trump attempts to “deconstruct” the nation. Trump will not cure his ignorance or become a more competent political leader. And, even if Trump realizes that Ryan’s extreme Ayn Randian views cannot be sold to the Republican base, the fundamental orientation of the Republican Party - little or no taxes coupled with no protection of the environment or the American people – virtually ensures that their future legislation will not be popular. Thus, as long as voters resist this deconstruction of the nation, Trump will continue to fail.
Trump, too lost big on this. While he has self-promoted himself as the ultimate deal maker and real estate builder, his real business model was based on recognition that he was a failed builder. He rented out his name to properties built by others, but did not need to deal with details. Trump doesn’t like details. For the promise to repeal and replace Obamacare immediately, the promise that was made repeatedly throughout his campaign, Trump rented out his name to Paul Ryan – hoping that he and others would handle the details and the heavy lift.
To make matters worse for Trump, he made it clear that, even as the bill was destined to fail, his “command” was to hold the vote. When Ryan decided that he had to pull the bill, he showed the world that he wasn’t afraid of Trump. Trump reverted to his usual theater tactics, calling Robert Costa of the Washington Post to get the word out that he was pulling the bill. He must have hoped that we would miss that Ryan was aware of a separation of powers.
The Republicans who have been so irate about how ObamaCare was flawed offered an alternative that would deprive millions of health insurance and would be punitive to the elderly, women, and the poor. The bill was another perverse attempt to take from the poor to give to the rich. The GOP may work for months and years to come to harm ObamaCare, but they need to accept that ObamaCare changed the country. Now, Americans believe that healthcare is a right, not a privilege; and they believe their government should work to assure that right.
More importantly than even the failure of this egregious bill is what it portends for future Trump attempts to “deconstruct” the nation. Trump will not cure his ignorance or become a more competent political leader. And, even if Trump realizes that Ryan’s extreme Ayn Randian views cannot be sold to the Republican base, the fundamental orientation of the Republican Party - little or no taxes coupled with no protection of the environment or the American people – virtually ensures that their future legislation will not be popular. Thus, as long as voters resist this deconstruction of the nation, Trump will continue to fail.