PRESIDENT Donald Trump loves to win and he just would never give up even after his campaign promise to “repeal and replace Obamacare on Day One” has collapsed many times over in the Republican-dominated House and Senate, despite going through several revisions and incarnations within his six months of presidency.
After not being able to win enough support even among members of his own party to put the most recent “repeal and replace” Republican health care bill on the Senate floor for a vote, Trump and Senate Majority Floor Leader Mitch McConnell agreed to just repeal Obamacare and then come up with an acceptable replacement bill within two years. But even this Plan B has collapsed even before any debate or votes could be done as four Republicans have signified their decisions to vote NO.
Democrats have consistently and firmly declared that they would only work with Republicans to “repair” Obamacare and not to repeal it, which means to pass the bill, the party of Trump cannot afford to lose more than two votes.
This desperate Plan B was considered, despite pledging many times during the campaign that he will push for a “repeal and replace” of Obamacare instead of just repealing it because he did not want “people dying in the streets.”
But after realizing how difficult and complicated it is to repeal and/or replace Obamacare as he promised, Trump has now repeatedly expressed his disappointment over the collapse of Trumpcare, and declared that it is time to “let Obamacare fail.”
“I think we’re probably in that position where we’ll let Obamacare fail,” Trump said at the White House this week. “We’re not going to own it. I’m not going to own it. I can tell you, the Republicans are not going to own it.”
Trump blamed the Democrats saying, “We have 52 people, we had no Democrat support. We had four ‘no’s…It would be nice to have Democrat support but really they’re obstructionist. They have no ideas. They have no thought process. All they want to do is obstruct government and obstruct, period.”
Speaking from the White House on Tuesday, July 18, Trump said, “I am disappointed because for so many years I’ve been hearing repeal, replace.”
Then he pivoted to 2018 saying, “With only a very small majority, the Republicans in the House & Senate need more victories next year since Dems totally obstruct, no votes!”
What Trump does not realize is that the health care issue is NOT all about politics. For Democrats and the few Republicans who stood their ground to fight against the bill that will repeal and replace Obamacare, it is about what will be good for their constituents. Health care, after all, is NOT a commodity. We are talking about something very personal — peoples’ health and lives.
Doesn’t he consider the fact that lawmakers and local government officials also consider the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office which reports that with Trumpcare, more people will be left uninsured compared to what will happen if Obamacare stays? That the poor and the hard-working middle class will be the ones most vulnerable while the richest of the rich will be rewarded with hefty tax credits?
Doesn’t he realize that this Republican health care bill does not really have the approval and support of most Americans as revealed by polls after polls? And this sentiment is also shared even by Trump’s own voters. Just 12 percent of Americans living in the counties that fueled Donald Trump’s win in the 2016 presidential election support the Republican Party’s efforts on health care, as revealed by the results of the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll of these “Trump counties.”
How can Trump wash his hands and say he does not own this problem and just let Obamacare fail? Doesn’t he realize he is responsible for people who will lose their access to health care should this happen? Is he praying for this to happen so he can say he “won”?
Why is he so obsessed with repealing Obamacare when he and the Republicans can work with Democrats to repair the bill and make it work better for the American people? Is it because this is a major legacy of the first African-American president and they just want to kill it as they did with other Obama initiatives to protect ordinary hardworking Americans?
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Gel Santos Relos is the anchor of TFC’s “Balitang America.” Views and opinions expressed by the author in this column are solely those of the author and not of Asian Journal and ABS-CBN-TFC. For comments, go to www.TheFil-AmPerspective.com, https://www.facebook.com/Gel.Santos.Relos
