Different Takes: How The Trump Administration Is Sabotaging Obamacare; Fear And Loathing In The Health Policy Debate
Editorial pages offer tough takes on the Trump administration's executive maneuvers to render the Affordable Care Act powerless, the Republican's plans to replace it and how this particular legislative fight shows Washington "at its worst."
The New York Times:
Health Care In A Time Of Sabotage
Is Trumpcare finally dead? Even now, it’s hard to be sure, especially given Republican moderates’ long track record of caving in to extremists at crucial moments. But it does look as if the frontal assault on the Affordable Care Act has failed. And let’s be clear: The reason this assault failed wasn’t that Donald Trump did a poor selling job, or that Mitch McConnell mishandled the legislative strategy. Obamacare survived because it has worked — because it brought about a dramatic reduction in the number of Americans without health insurance, and voters didn’t and don’t want to lose those gains. (Paul Krugman, 7/21)
Los Angeles Times:
The Trump Administration Is Using Obamacare Marketing Dollars To Attack Obamacare
President Trump keeps saying Obamacare will fail on its own. So why is his administration trying so hard to kill it? The latest effort was uncovered by the Daily Beast website, which reported Thursday that Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services was dipping into its “consumer information and outreach” budget — money Congress provided to encourage people to obtain insurance through Obamacare — to produce nearly two dozen YouTube videos blasting the law as burdensome and harmful. (7/21)
The Washington Post:
The GOP’s Repeal-And-Replace Plan Should Stay Dead
Republican senators have been huddling in hopes of reviving their Obamacare repeal-and-replace bill. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reminded them Thursday of why the bill should, on the contrary, stay dead. Congress’s scorekeepers found that the latest version of the Senate bill would result in 22 million more people without health coverage by 2026. That is true even after the CBO accounted for $70 billion in new funds meant to stabilize health-insurance markets by driving down premiums and other costs. (7/20)
The New York Times:
A Republican Health Care Fix
Imagine a young father stepping into the street. He is alert and conscientious. Then, a government truck speeds around the corner. The man lunges out of the way, but it’s too late: The truck runs him over, causing serious injury. Absent government misconduct, the man would have been just fine. While the primary effect of the government’s conduct is an injured man, there are significant secondary consequences. His children will lose his emotional comfort and financial support. His neighborhood loses a valued contributor to its social fabric. His employer must find at least a temporary replacement for the man’s labor. (J.D. Vance, 7/21)
Fortune:
Where The Republican Health Care Bill Stands After A Chaotic 72 Hours
It's been a topsy turvy three days for health care reform (please consider hugging a health care reporter). The Senate's original Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA), which was largely considered to be dead just two days ago, has been revived and somewhat tweaked as of this morning. And the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is already out with an analysis of that new legislation: 15 million more uninsured Americans next year relative to Obamacare and 22 million more uninsured by 2026. It would also reduce federal deficits by $420 billion over the next decade, according to CBO. (Sy Mukherjee, 7/20)
The Wall Street Journal:
Trump, ObamaCare And The Art Of The Fail
It was a political drubbing of the first order. A new Republican president and a Republican Senate and House put everything they had into a bill to repeal and replace ObamaCare, and couldn’t do it. The leadership is rocked. The president looks confused and hapless, while publicly enacting determination and a scolding tone toward those who’d let him down. He rarely showed signs of fully understanding the details or even the essentials of the plan he backed. His public remarks were all over the place: He’ll let ObamaCare collapse of its own weight; he’ll replace it with something big and beautiful; just repeal it; no, let it collapse. He criticized Hill Republicans: They “never discuss how good their healthcare bill is.” But neither did he, not in a persuasive way. (Peggy Noonan, 7/20)
San Francisco Chronicle:
Health Care Fight Shows Washington At Its Worst
I like partisan fights when those fights are about something real. The Medicaid fight was at least about something real. But most of this nonsense is a battle of liars trying to protect past lies in the hope of being able to make new lies seem just plausible enough for the liars to keep repeating them. (Jonah Goldberg, 7/21)
Cleveland Plain Dealer:
Republicans Trip Over Health Care: Editorial Board Roundtable
It was supposed to be a sprint to the finish line -- Republican leadership of the GOP-dominated U.S. Senate planned to repeal speedily the long-hated Obamacare, replace it with the Better Care Reconciliation Act and ride off into the sunset. Instead, it's been an Army crawl under withering fire for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, whose initial health care bill was too harsh for moderate Republicans who found it would leave 22 million more people without health insurance, and too generous for conservative Republicans who wanted to strip it bare. (7/20)
Lexington Herald Leader:
Ky. Lawmakers Offer Us Hypocrisy, Selfishness In Health-Care Bills
The implosion of the Republican effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act brought to mind the iconic scene in Tennessee Williams “A Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.” There, egged on by his son (Paul Newman) Big Daddy (played by Burl Ives) goes on a verbal rampage about the state of his world, which he characterizes as one of mendacity, lies and hypocrisy. (Ernie Yanarella, 7/20)
