Posted on 03/24/2017 2:15:38 PM PDT by IBD editorial writer
Health Reform: Friday's decision to pull the American Health Care Act from the House floor because it lacked enough votes to pass was a culmination of months of bad decisions, poor planning, and terrible messaging by the GOP leadership in the House.
This failure undermines not only the party's credibility, but President Trump's purported ability to "make great deals." Worse, it emboldens the left-wing "resistance."
Back in early December, we warned in this space that the Republican's ObamaCare repeal effort was "off to a bad start." That was when House Speaker Paul Ryan was talking up a "repeal and delay" plan that would have repealed pieces of ObamaCare while putting off a replacement plan for a couple years.
"This is a huge opportunity for Republicans to show that they can tackle the health care issue in a way that helps, not hurts, the working class," we wrote. "But it will require a concrete plan of action and the determination to stick with it. Something that, surprisingly, Republicans still seem to lack."
In the months following, things didn't improve much. Ryan's team repeatedly fumbled the ball, diluted the free-market message they should have been selling, and lost sight of the point of repealing ObamaCare which was to bring down insurance costs for millions of middle class families who've seen their premiums skyrocket and their benefits diminish under ObamaCare.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
When you combine feckless Republians with rogue leftist judges, do elections really matter?
Is it possible Trump was guaranteed those conservative caucus members would never vote for it so he pushed really hard to make Ryan look bad and we get a better Bill and better speaker? All along Trump played Ryan while Ryan didn’t know they would never be turned?
It’s very revealing that they didn’t hold a vote. My guess is that means that many potential yes votes didn’t want to go on record. That, in turn, means that they’ll be coming back soon.
I will repeat my summary:
Trump promised universal health care.
The Freedom caucus was not supporting that.
They want plain repeal as many here seem to
Trump was not even asking for that.
Some (not all) others in the house would get killed next year if they supported full repeal.
No agreement.
The Senate was even more impossible than the house.
Being from Los Angeles myself, I knew nothing about Ryan other than what was being said about him across the Republican and conservative media spectrum. So imagine my surprise when he turned out to be a total dud during the vice presidential debate. Ryan was truly awful in that debate.
Yet, for some reason I still can't fathom, he was then pushed to become the Speaker of the House.
Sure enough, he's been a complete disaster in that job, yet he was reelected to the speakership this year after an entire election cycle during which he obstructed the Republican nominee from beginning to end.
President Trump has the best of intentions, but he is a political neophyte. The President should have been able to rely on Pence, Ryan and McConnell to do an exceptional job of steering him through political minefields during this crucial early period of his presidency. Instead, I think they all failed him. And most especially, Ryan failed him and us worst of all. At this point, I am no longer optimistic that the congressional Republicans will turn things around.
Be truthful here.. prez trump came out 100% behind this bill.. He said so, and there is no denying it.
Ryan was given a task, and he failed to deliver to expectations. It's time for him to be benched, too.
Trump is the CEO; he has to delegate. If his subordinates cannot perform, then he must replace them with someone else who can.
I don't accept the short-term meme that Trump is damaged. Trump should publicly make sweeping changes of all people who were involved in this as a show of action, and use it to promise his base that next time he will get it done right.
But in the meantime, he should say he's moving onto other agenda items while his new healthcare team puts in the groundwork to set the new frame properly.
Trump should set a new deadline so as to manage the expectations of the base. He should promise to pick this up again in September, after the August recess. Then, he can use the time to craft a new plan, and use the August recess to schedule town hall meetings across the country where Republican representatives on his side can build support amongst their constituents.
-PJ
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