Trumpcare: Aiming For The Moving Target

Zoom and Bored (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Ever since the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) was passed in 2010, which despite its flaws enrolled millions of people in health insurance programs that were previously denied them, Congressional Republicans have been devising ways to "repeal and replace" the law with their own version.  Most of those efforts have had as much success as Wile E. Coyote's attempts to subdue the Road Runner in those Warner Brothers cartoons.

But now they've found a version of the American Health Care Act (aka Trumpcare) that actually passed the House of Representatives, without so much as public or governmental scrutiny, on a party-line vote of 217-213.  There was a celebration at the White House with President Donald Trump, who hasn't had much Congressional luck other than getting a spending bill passed that keeps the government in business for a few more months, high-fiving everyone who had anything to do with the health care bill.  That, folks, is like the New England Patriots celebrating a Super Bowl championship at the end of the first quarter.

The bill now goes to the Senate, where it faces an uncertain future depending on how much radical surgery they choose to do on it.  For now, in case you've forgotten, here's some of what's in the AHCA bill.

• It allows insurers to raise premiums on people with pre-existing conditions.
• It restricts expansion of Medicaid after 2020.
• No penalties for those who don't buy insurance, but will let insurers charge 30 percent more for those who waited until after they got sick to get insurance.
• No cost-sharing for low-income folks to help pay for their deductibles.
• States can apply for waivers of mandatory coverage, which includes coverage for maternity care and emergency room visits.
• No taxes on the wealthy and others who helped pay for Obamacare.

The public outcry over the latest sneak attack on their right to better health care has included veiled threats against continued employment for House GOP members who voted for the AHCA.  Democrats, many of whom voted against the bill, have been heard singing "Na Na Na Na, Hey Hey Hey, Goodbye" (the 1969 rock anthem by Steam) in the House chambers, as if this were a sports arena.

If this were the fall of 2018, all this unrest against an unpopular bill might have made a difference at the polls.  But this is the spring of 2017, a few months removed from the last election, which means there will be plenty of time for collective amnesia to set in.  At least the GOP hopes so.

The next few months will decide whether or not Obamacare really does get repealed and replaced by Congress.  For that to happen, the GOP should be timing their intentions just right so that they don't end up falling off a cliff.   Just like Wile E. Coyote.