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« on: April 01, 2017, 05:57:03 PM » |
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The Patriot Post - Alexander's Column 3-29-2017
From The Federalist Patriot
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Democrats Beware — ObamaCare Survived
By Mark Alexander
Mar. 29, 2017
“Ambition, avarice, personal animosity, party opposition, and many other motives, not more laudable than these, are apt to operate as well upon those who support as upon those who oppose the right side of a question. Were there not even these inducements to moderation, nothing could be more ill-judged than that intolerant spirit, which has, at all times, characterized political parties.” —Alexander Hamilton (1787)
Despite all the hyperventilated ad-revenue-driven media shock banners and alerts about the fact Republicans did not defuse the Democrats' ObamaCare time-bomb last week, make no mistake: The Democratic Party’s1 so-called “Affordable Care Act2,” which turned out to be anything but, remains locked in a death spiral. The lack of a Republican consensus may appear to be a “Democrat victory” for the moment, but their failed socialist health care charade is on life support.
That notwithstanding, so gleeful are Democrats that Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has stalled a Senate confirmation vote on President Donald Trump’s outstanding Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch3. This maneuver is an attempt to derail another one of Trump’s major campaign promises — appointing a conservative jurist to fill the vacant seat of the late Antonin Scalia. The delay allows Senate Democrats to bask a bit longer in the glow over House Republicans' unsuccessful first pass at cleaning up the train wreck known as ObamaCare.
Now, emboldened by the Trump/Ryan setback, Schumer is floating a filibuster to the vote on Judge Gorsuch, which will force Senate Republicans to either abandon the nomination (which has exactly zero chance of happening) or change the rules of the Senate to allow confirmation by a simple majority. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell re-affirmed his intent4 to see the Gorsuch confirmation through — noting it is up to Democrats to choose how that happens.
Altering the Senate rule is too often referred to as “the nuclear option,” but it’s really “the Reid Rule,” as it was former Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid who brazenly changed Senate rules5 in 2013 to abolish the filibuster on agency-level and judicial nominees. By wielding this rule against the party that created it, Republicans are providing an age-old Scriptural lesson for their irreligious Democratic brethren: “As you sow so shall you reap.”
Regarding the sidelined health care reform bill, as long as “ObamaCare is the law of the land,” as Speaker Paul Ryan laments, Americans who bought into the false promise of cheap health care coverage will continue to find themselves over-charged, under-insured and poorly served — at least until Republicans can agree on an alternative to restore and improve private-sector health care markets. Notably, while that agreement seeks to be a “repeal,” there are few things on the planet more complex than summarily repealing an entitlement — especially one that so many citizens across the political spectrum have been forced to accept.
Of course, the media’s coverage of Republican efforts on behalf of those Americans has been all fragrance and little substance. This is because fomenting dissent along topical lines of division sells advertising, while delving into the details of complicated legislation does not. “Breaking News Alert” would better read “Faking News Alert.” Despite the MSM’s contrary declarations about the demise of the Republican bill, to paraphrase that sage Mark Twain, reports of health care reform’s death are greatly exaggerated.
Though Republican leaders pulled their American Health Care Act legislation because of insufficient support6, despite Trump’s “ultimatum7” to pass it on an unrealistic timetable, the lack of consensus on the Republican side of the House (and the Senate) is having an unintended consequence. The conservative Republican brand has been deeply wounded. The failure of this bill was not about a lack of loyalty to the president but a lack of loyalty to the American people.
The fact is, the Trump/Ryan proposal had many strong merits (along with its flaws), including subjecting Medicaid to budget constraints for the first time since it was enacted in 1965. But as political analyst Dennis Prager argues, sometimes purists are determined to kill what they believe in8 by taking the “all or none” route.
“In terms of policy,” notes Prager, “Donald Trump is a conservative dream. From appointing a conservative to the Supreme Court, to approving the Keystone XL pipeline, to weakening the fanatical, hysterical, and tyrannical EPA, to appointing an ambassador to the United Nations who has moral contempt for that immoral institution, to backing Israel, to seeking to reduce economy-choking regulations on business — indeed essentially everything conservatives would wish for in a president — Donald Trump is almost too good to be true.”
Indeed, as I wrote in December9, the conservative profile of Donald Trump’s administration was shaping up to rival that of Ronald Reagan’s10 first administration. And Trump has continued to surround himself with very capable conservatives.
The primary concern11 voiced by the Freedom Caucus was that the proposed plan left too much of the ObamaCare infrastructure in place, particularly the regulations that imposed government mandates on health insurance markets.
To that end, my friend Jim DeMint at Heritage Foundation had proposed a comprehensive health care reform bill12, because, as Heritage health care policy analyst Edmund Haislmaier concluded13, “While the [House] bill contained a number of provisions that were good conservative policies, a major reason it fell short was that [it] did not go far enough in dismantling ObamaCare’s regulatory architecture.” |
