From left: Mitch McConnell, Bill Cassidy, Lindsey Graham and John Barrasso with other
Republican leaders on Tuesday (NY Times)
It's a wrap on the Graham-Cassidy Bill (for now). Numerous republican senators, namely Senators Susan Collins, John McCain, and Rand Paul, expressed their dissent to the bills for various reasons– effects on health care, disapproval of the partisan process, and objection to the architecture of the bill, respectively. Collins's decision to firmly state her opposition made it clear that this bill would not have enough votes to pass, compelling Republicans to discard their plans to vote on the measure. This acknowledged defeat highlights a substantial failure of Republicans to fulfill Trump's campaign promise of repeal and replace, a concept they'd been pushing for years.
Senator Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham ensure that the fight is not over, but more something to be tackled at a later time. McConnell stated that Republicans will first focus their efforts on a tax code overhaul. Senator Bill Cassidy noted that he was very much disappointed in not having the votes. Senator Lisa Murkowski declared that this bill was ineffective due to the rushed speed, with one hearing and only a few days until voting after receiving the bill. House speaker Paul Ryan also mentioned the house republicans' frustration in the Senate for not acting on such a "seminal promise."
Trump also expressed his disdain, stating that at "some point there will be a repeal and replace...but we are disappointed in certain so-called Republicans."
What effect, if any, do you think this defeat will have on Republican morale and Trump supporters who did not see a fundamental campaign promise fulfilled?
Do you think Republicans might have more success with overhauling the tax code than they did with their health care bills?
What does this entail about the nature of their efforts to repeal and replace–is it inevitably doomed? Are the replace bills just not good enough?
Do you think efforts to repeal and replace should continue? Or is it better to focus our efforts on simply improving the ACA?
4 comments:
I just love Trump's comments about "so-called Republicans". I find it refreshing that there are people in Congress who are willing to break party lines and vote as an individual, thinking as an individual and not merely mindlessly following their party. The seems to be a lot of disagreement within the Republican party about, well just about everything. Rather than working together and compromising the different factions seem to focus on name calling, and attacking opposing factions. The result of this inability to compromise is obvious. They cannot repeal and replace Obamacare without having a plan they can all agree on, so nothing has happened on this front for the Republican party.
I agree with Sam, and I think it is a good thing to seek compromise and acknowledge defeat and the other side, but I think that in our society more people look down upon those people who are willing to compromise, which makes compromise so hard to do. In news articles, and even Hannah's interpretation of it, things are either a "success" or "defeat" to an agenda, and it is an issue that compromise never makes many voters happy. Supporters of a party will dislike it, and supporters of the other side will laugh at a failure without thinking about compromise. The issue with politics is that people that do participate in politics always have a goal, and it becomes an all or nothing deal. This was the case for Dan White, the supervisor in S.F. who killed Harvey Milk and George Moscone, and there certainly are a lot of people would go crazy or turn to emotion rather than compromise.
I take a stance somewhere between Trump and Sam on this issue. I don't think that any Congressperson should vote as an individual, and I don't think that any Congressperson should vote following a party. A congressperson should vote to fill the promises made to their constituents, which is why they are elected to be in Congress in the first place. That being said, the Republican party is becoming a party of broken promises with this bill. Since the Affordable Care Act, a central running point for many conservatives has been immediate repeal of Obamacare. 8 months in, and Republicans still have yet to deliver on this campaign promise to their constituents. Time and time again, Republicans who have promised immediate repeal have denied such repeals, which is in direct contradiction of the politics they were elected for.
I think that the reason that some Republicans are opposed to the bill are valid reasons that could be remedied by a rewrite of the bill, and that if Congress took more time to write the bill in a more effective way, a lot of the concerns that some republicans have could be qualmed. In this way, I think that it is good that there are some Republicans who are currently opposed to the bill in order to ensure that the bill that is ultimately passed is optimal and not blindly rushed and voted for by Republicans. However, it should not be the case that the Republicans give up completely on the bill, as by doing so they are breaking one of the promises and campaign goals that many of the voters supported when voting for them in Congress.
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