Trump under fire over health care
Obamacare was signed into law seven years-ago this Wednesday.
Happy anniversary Obamacare!
It’s still here, and despite what you’ve heard, it’s still going strong.
It has withstood dozens of attempts to repeal and replace it, and a 2012 Supreme Court challenge.
Now, though, Republicans control both houses of Congress. And more importantly, a Republican controls the White House.
The one thing they can’t control is the message.
Enter the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
And oh, how the CBO has spoken.
In short, the CBO’s report indicates that fewer Americans will have health care coverage, and some at higher costs, than they have under Obamacare.
After seven years of Republicans showing disdain for Barack Obama’s signature accomplishment, you’d think they would have had a serious plan that would make good on President Trump’s campaign promise to provide “insurance for everybody.”
Not so.
In fact, some of the loudest Trumpcare critics are Republicans.
So far, there are more than a dozen conservative Republicans who claim they won’t vote for Trumpcare, because it doesn’t go far enough. While nine moderate Republicans have vowed not to support it, because it goes too far.
Meanwhile, Democrats are having a ball watching Republicans snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Especially since the numbers that were submitted to the CBO with that Trumpcare proposal were especially problematic for the proposal’s namesake.
According to the health think tank, Kaiser Family Foundation, it appears that voters in many of counties that gave Trump his biggest margins, could be hurt the most by Trumpcare.
And since Trump gathered much of his support from lower- income, and older voters, he should know many of his supporters won’t be getting any favors from Trumpcare, either.
Generally, those people could end up paying higher premiums, and they could lose many of their tax credits.
While, Trump and Republicans in Congress are scrambling to figure out ways to avoid appearing to be reneging on their campaign promises, a new problem has emerged.
Trump’s irresponsible claim that Barack Obama wire-tapped him before the November election has been emphatically pooh-poohed by everybody who has been asked about it.
While Trump’s tweets have been covered in the past, and then dismissed as falsehoods, tweeting that the former-president of the United States committed a serious felony has stuck.
So, reporters are taking their turns asking for proof that Trump’s allegations are true.
“I don’t think there was an actual tap of Trump Tower,” the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Devin Nunes – a Republican – said last week.
But the capper came when Trump’s hand-picked Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, was asked by a reporter, “Did you ever have any reason to believe that he was wiretapped by the previous administration?”
Sessions, who was one of Trump’s staunchest supporters during the presidential campaign, paused and then he said, “Um, Look, Um. The answer is no.”
Those two “Ums,” said all you need to know.
Sessions had been forced to face the reality, that his boss had simply made up the claim – and for no good reason.
It wasn’t Trump’s first detour around the truth.
And if history is any guide, it won’t be his last.
So, while Trump tries to get his administration on track, and free of any self-inflicted controversies, he’s now caught in the realities of governance.
He can’t campaign for four years.
That he has been elected to serve all of the people of the United States – not just the people who voted for him.
That he must do what he can to regain the trust of the people, and that means many of his fellow Republicans.
And that unfounded, early-morning tweets, are unworthy of the office he holds.
Trumpcare, if it is to gain enough support in Congress to get it to his desk, will either have to be changed drastically, or sent back to the drawing board.
Either way, it’s a near certainty that many Republicans will be holding their noses when they vote for it.
Somebody had better pass the clothes pins when they do.
Edward A. Owens is a three time Emmy Award winner and 20-year veteran of television news. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net
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