How Not to Repeal Obamacare

By John Hilton

Now that it appears the GOP will not be able to repeal the Affordable Care Act despite controlling the House, Senate and White House, the Monday morning quarterbacking can commence.

For seven years, Republicans achieved a rare unified cohesive bloc around a singular issue.

Repealing Obamacare attracted conservative support that transcended the regional, age and other variables that often make it hard to keep a caucus united.

I’m always interested in how the sausage gets made. I’m currently reading a book on how President Theodore Roosevelt skillfully guided major pieces of legislation regulating the railroads and food/drug makers over significant opposition from his own party.

Like a grandmaster chess player, TR rarely made a wrong move reading legislators, as well as the public mood. He used methods of persuasion and drafted allies in ways presidents had not done previously.

As a result, Roosevelt ranks second among presidents for “domestic accomplishments” in a respected Siena College scorecard of presidents.

The current GOP leadership will not score well in any future ranking. So how did it all go so bad? I am going with two major themes on this:

1. Wasted Time. To paraphrase Don Henley, “I’m afraid it’s all been wasted time…” since then-President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act in March 2010.

That was more than seven years ago. Republicans immediately and effectively seized on widespread opposition to the massive changes wrought by the new law. Mistakes were made, the website didn’t work, and many premiums rose.

Obama said people could keep their doctors, and it turns out they couldn’t. Each time, Republican leaders gleefully pounced, raising cash and collecting votes.

What they failed to do was come up with an alternative plan. Anticipation is the true test of leadership. Great leaders are three and four moves ahead of the game, anticipating what their subjects don’t even know they want and need yet.

Roosevelt knew Americans would want and need consumer confidence that food and drugs are safe. He knew the future American economy relied on eliminating monopolistic control over railroads.

Current GOP leaders should have known Americans would want to keep the health care gains made post-2010. Seven years seems like an awfully long time to create legislation that achieves a better health care result.

Instead, Republicans were content to relentlessly criticize the ACA. And that makes their failure to replace it look even worse.

2. Overpromising. As he departed office in 1995, Illinois Congressman Bob Michel had parting words for his ambitious GOP colleagues: “Boy, I hope you folks aren’t overpromising what you can’t deliver.”

President Donald J. Trump did just that on health care, vowing several times to come up with a “wonderful” bill that would cover more people at lower premiums.

That, of course, is virtually impossible within the current system. The longer this went on, with vague promises of a grandiose plan but no actual plan, the effort took on a fatalistic aura of defeat.

And so it is.

This time, it has a feel of finality. Perhaps now, the serious work will begin to repair the flaws and create a health care system we can be proud of.

InsuranceNewsNet Senior Editor John Hilton has covered business and other beats in more than 20 years of daily journalism. John may be reached at john.hilton@innfeedback.com.