Well. Six years later, Republicans have yet to come up with a viable, fleshed out alternative to Obamacare.
Behind the closed doors of the Republican retreat, Republican members expressed concern over the lack of progress on the ACA repeal.
“I’m hearing a lot of members say that they want Obamacare-light. And that’s not what we promised the American people,” Rep. Raul Labrador (R-ID) is reported saying by Bloomberg. “I’m very concerned about the things I’m hearing in the conference because they’re different than the things I’ve heard over the last six years.”
Yes, people, now that Republicans actually have to govern and legislate, they are all aflutter with consternation because it turns out repealing and replacing Obamacare is harder than they thought.
As has been explained to them repeatedly as they trolled affordable healthcare, willing it to fail simply to deny Obama a political win, the mandates are necessary in order to keep the all important preexisting condition rule in effect. This means some measure of government involvement, although Obamacare itself is based in part on a Republican idea floated by Heritage. Obama was nothing if not open to good ideas no matter their province, something that will never be honestly said of the modern day Republican Party.
Bloomberg further stated, “Labrador said it’s ‘frustrating’ that many Republicans are privately calling for a more government-centered approach than the party has been promising publicly.”
Uh huh.
For six years Republicans have been waving empty Obamacare leaflets in front of their press wall, shouting and sweating over all of their outrage about legislation it turns out most of them act as if they have never even bothered to read let alone try to understand.
Maybe the bulk of the Republican Party is like Trump, getting their information on bills and reality from talk radio, Fox News, and conspiracy sites like Alex Jones’ InfoWars.
Obamacare Light is actually just going to be Obamacare, dismantled and put back together carelessly and incorrectly, renamed Trumpcare, and claimed a success.
For all of the efforts of the few remaining intellectual conservatives, this is not a serious party. True intellectuals have faced this fact and moved on to criticizing the current path of reality TV showmanship, broken laws, disregarded responsibility, stunningly wasteful spending chasing conspiracy theories, and a general platform that is anything but conservative.
Fiscal conservatives might find their home in the modern day Democratic Party, where officials often actually try to pay for bills instead of claiming that debt doesn’t matter. Course Republicans only say debt doesn’t matter when they are in charge.
Obamacare Light is coming your way, but only if Republicans can finally admit that their blustery, misinformed rhetoric was actually exactly that – the desperate, partisan words of fools who didn’t even bother to try to be a part of the solution because the wanted the Democratic President to fail.