OPINION:
Whether campaigning for Congress or actually being in control, Republicans have a tradition of overpromising and underdelivering. Expected now to deliver on their promise, made in loud and brave voice, to repeal and replace Obamacare, some of the Republicans seem determined to live up to the reputation made over the decades.
President Obama forced the Affordable Care Act, so called, through an eager Democratic Congress with not a single Republican vote. That’s how Democrats deliver to their constituents. The good news at the time was that Mr. Obama birthed a spontaneous grass-roots uprising called the Tea Party. Armed with a courage transplant, the Republicans, including a new generation of the loud and the brave, won a majority in the House of Representatives in 2010. Then they sat down to rest for a while. Their leaders told them they couldn’t do anything about Obamacare because they only controlled “one-half of one-third” of the seats. But when the party won the Senate, everybody would watch Republican smoke.
Four years later, with Obamacare metastasizing through the body politic and devastating the health insurance and health care industries, voters who didn’t know better rallied once more, giving Republicans control of the Senate. But without the White House, what could a mere Republican Congress do?
But at last, dawn broke. Republicans at last controlled both houses of Congress and there was at last a Republican president in the White House who had campaigned explicitly on promises to repeal and replace Obamacare. But wait some more. After six years of brave talk, extravagant promises and dozens of symbolic votes in the House, there was no comprehensive plan to repeal and replace the law. Voters who assumed the congressional leadership would be ready to rock and roll as soon as the new president arrived in town might have to be satisfied with another lullaby.
The party is ready to deliver only more excuses, more pleas for patience, more reasons why, and since repeal will be difficult, the gullible should be satisfied with “repair.” In a reprise of Margaret Thatcher’s famous needle to George H.W. Bush on the eve of the first Gulf War, “this is no time to go wobbly.” (He didn’t, and Saddam Hussein was soon history.)
No one suggests a hastily cobbled-together replacement, but neither should the Republicans cower with resignation that “Obamacare is here to stay,” persuaded by arguments that delivering on their promise would further disrupt the Democratic disaster of Obamacare. Nor should Republicans in Congress fall for the siren song of “mend it, don’t end it.” Obamacare can’t be mended. It’s beyond repair. Trying to do that would be putting lipstick on a pig, a task Congress knows so well.
Because not a single Republican voted for it, the Gullible Old Party is under no obligation to save the pieces of Obamacare, which failed to deliver even one of the three “cross-my-heart and hope-to-die” promises Mr. Obama dispensed with such assurance: If you like your existing insurance plan, you can keep it. If you like your doctor, you can keep him or her, too, and Obamacare will lower the cost of a family’s premiums by $2,500 a year.
Mr. Obama knew better, even as he repeated the promises endlessly, but with little media skepticism or scrutiny he figured he could get by with it, and for a long time he did. Doing the right thing now may require spine transplants for the Republican leadership, whether that’s covered under Obamacare or not. But failure to stand and deliver may require euthanasia. That’s definitely covered.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.