Lewiston Tribune, Idaho, William L. Spence column

Jan. 21--BOISE -- The oft-quoted final scene in "The Candidate," a 1972 political satire starring Robert Redford, summarizes the situation congressional Republicans may soon find themselves in.

Redford plays a dark-horse candidate who challenges a popular incumbent. No one believes he'll actually win, so he spends much of the movie speaking his mind, criticizing his own party's power structure as much as his opponent -- kind of like a polite, Hollywood version of Donald Trump.

In the final scene, having eked out an unexpected victory, Redford's character turns to a political adviser and asks, "What do we do now?"

Congressional Republicans may want to start scripting an answer to that, at least with respect to Obamacare. They've spent six years dissing the Affordable Care Act -- repeatedly trying to repeal the law, criticizing almost every aspect of it, complaining about its many perceived faults and assuring Americans that their vision for health care is vastly superior to anything the Democrats can devise.

They've never had to prove up on those claims, though, because the Senate regularly blocked consideration of their bills and President Barack Obama was always in position to veto anything that squeaked through.

Those excuses may not hold up much longer. As House Speaker Paul Ryan recently noted, should Republicans maintain their House and Senate majorities and pick up the White House in the November elections, repealing "every word" of Obamacare immediately becomes one of the party's highest priorities.

So what do they do then?

After the last repeal effort, several congressmen suggested they could simply roll back Obamacare, return everything to the way it was before and America would still have the best health care system in the world.

But that's just wishful thinking. Like it or not, Congress now owns the health care system -- meaning whoever rules the post-Obama world will be held responsible for any changes they make. That's the political reality; there's no rolling things back and saying, "hey, don't blame us if this doesn't work out, all we did was reset the clock."

If Republicans go into this with the mindset that they can just repeal Obamacare and call it good, they'll only create a new set of problems and won't actually solve anything. So instead of them beating the health care drum, they'll hand it off to Democrats in the next election and the issue will continue to divide the country.

"I think it would be a huge mistake if they repeal Obamacare and don't put something else in place," said Idaho Department of Insurance Director Dean Cameron. "If they do, the pendulum will swing back in the next election. They have to offer alternatives -- and they need to be real alternatives, not just talking points."

Punting the issue back to the states isn't an appropriate solution, either. Arguably, the only reason the Affordable Care Act was adopted in the first place was because the states failed to address the growing number of uninsured and soaring health care costs. Their inaction forced Congress' hand.

For better or worse, it's now up to Congress to fix any perceived problems with the health care system -- and that's true regardless of who's elected in November.

As good as Redford's character was at criticizing "the system," he didn't have a clue how to actually govern. That made for a good Hollywood story, but it's a lousy way to run a country. Whichever party wants to claim the mantle in November has to be able to say, "here's what we do next."

Spence covers politics for the Tribune. He may be contacted at bspence@lmtribune.com or (208) 791-9168.

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