Since the introduction of the Affordable Care Act, commonly referred to as Obamacare, in 2010, Republicans nationwide have made it their mission to derail and destroy the Obama administration’s steps to improve healthcare. President Donald Trump garnered support throughout his entire campaign by repeatedly promising his supporters to abolish Obamacare and replace it with healthcare that will far surpass its predecessor in quality.
Friday, Republicans in Washington D.C. failed to put their money where their mouths are. Spearheaded by Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, the proposed replacement for Obamacare, dubbed the American Health Care Act, would have curtailed federal funding of Medicaid, eradicated the individual mandate and end the requirement that employers offer policies covering things such as maternity and mental health.
Rampant cries echoed from the White House, with Trump giving Republicans an ultimatum to either pass the overhaul of Obamacare or reject it and allow him to move onto other legislative issues. Much to the chagrin of proponents of the act, the ultimatum was widely unnecessary. Due to internal disagreements largely stemming from The Freedom Caucus, who claimed that the act did not do enough to repeal Obamacare, the act was unable to gain the necessary support and failed to make it to vote.
Republicans will fail in trying to fix broken American health care system
Following the embarrassing defeat in the Republican majority Congress, Trump announced that the experience had taught him the ways of government.
“We learned a lot about loyalty and we learned a lot about the vote getting process. And we learned about very arcane rules in both the Senate and the House.”
Overlooking the fact that Trump seemingly did not know the rules of either the House or the Senate, suggested by his statement above, the irony of this situation is overwhelmingly satisfactory following the seven years of Republican promises to repeal Obamacare. But Trump’s failure to make good on one of his largest campaign platforms, coupled with the Republican party’s failure to accomplish one of their largest common goals, is troubling when looking ahead.
The sheer ineptitude of Trump to cultivate any sort of support and cohesiveness within his own party, which to reiterate has control of the White House, the House and the Senate, serves to reaffirm Trump’s startling lack of political experience. Trump attempted to pass a huge overhaul of a nationwide healthcare plan after being in office for two months, with an approval rating of 41% and without any sort of consensus among his own party, let alone bipartisan support. If this is how Trump thinks politics works, he’s dead wrong.
Republican health care bill breaks almost all of Trump’s promises
Going about passing legislation of this magnitude without taking the time to develop a clear plan of action, without drafting a solid bill that will stand up to scrutiny and without taking adequate time to assure you have the support to at least get the legislation to a vote is going to repeatedly result in huge embarrassments like the one suffered last week, which knocked Trump’s approval rating down to 36 percent.
Embarrassments don’t lead to new legislation, which means the government is not getting much of anything done. Personally, I’m happy that Trump and his cronies failed to repeal Obamacare, but another four years of political gridlock does not sound appealing.
Additionally, gaffes such as these will continue to lower Americans’ trust and support of the government and will lead to even more dramatic political polarization instead of mending the chasm between the right and the left.
Point Counterpoint: The only catastrophe related to ACA would be repealing it
Trump and his administration, as well as Republicans in Congress, are floundering. Their leader is inept and ignorant as to how the government actually is run, their party is riddled with disagreements and hostility and numerous damning allegations are being hurled at officials left and right. This sort of dysfunction is not what America needs right now.
America needs a strong, capable leader who is able to build consensus and pass legislation. Just two months into his presidency, Trump has made it pretty apparent that this leader is not him.
Aly Niehans ([email protected]) is a freshman majoring in international studies and intending to major in journalism.
