Monday, September 25, 2017

Affordable Care Act Repeal and Replacement Won't Pass

Image URL: https://i.elitestatic.com/content/uploads/2017/05/08113456/Donald-Trump-healthcare-plan-failed.jpg


On Monday, September 25th, GOP senator from Maine, Susan Collins, announced that she would not vote for the repeal and replacement plan of the Affordable Care Act, put in place under the Obama Administration. This came just days after Senator John McCain announced that he would not support the plan either. Both have been huge blows to the seven-year effort by the GOP to end the Affordable Care Act. The reasons for why many prominent Republican leaders oppose the plan vary. Some believe that the bill doesn't change enough of the bill while others believe that the proposed funding is insufficient. It is especially interesting because, due to special budget rules, Republicans are able to pass the bill without any votes from Democrats, but if they lose more than two votes from the 52 republican members in the Senate, then it is game over, and the bill doesn't pass.

This almost certainly failed effort is an example of how divided American politics are. Each state has its own agenda and each senator has their own idea of how to go about completing their agenda for the better of the state and it's people. This inherently leads to difficulty in compromising on the national level, which is what the Constitution intended for. We've learned about how the Constitution intentionally created a system of checks and balances between state and federal power, and this is just another level of the same idea. 

Thoughts?



1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It seems ludicrous in a way to repeal Obamacare without having a viable replacement that can support the citizens of the United States. I remember when Obama’s healthcare plan was debating and amending its way through the legislature, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan had commented that we should not rush the healthcare bill, the same bill that took over 4 years to set in stone. Here, we have Republicans who are almost “lame ducking “ a healthcare bill for the sake of removing a democratic legislature. Furthermore, I applaud Senators McCain and Collins for standing in opposition to the repealing Obamacare because with a republican majority, legislators can be easily persuaded to vote in favor of their measure disregarding the actual content of the bill. A video released by several news sources reveals reporters asking senators and representatives of the Republican Party if they had actually read the contents of the Obamacare replacement. To this, many hesitated, avoided the question, answered curtly or simply dismissed the question. It baffles me to see that legislators who serve to uphold their citizen’s view, have not even read a piece of legislation that could have a huge impact on its people. The checks and balances is a part of the Constitution is a concept that must be respected by our representative in order for democracy to run efficiently, and currently I do not see a display of that.