Repeal and Replace Obamacare with Something Great.
Time to govern.
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| Path to greater GOP influence |
Oregon Congressman Greg Walden has a safe district for a Republican. He is my US Representative in southern Oregon. It is the part of Oregon that is the "mountain west", so it has all of the indicia of Republican-ism: rural, agricultural, poor, less educated, religious, resource-based. This means Greg Walden has the time to campaign and fundraise and do political work outside his district. He also had the inclination and ability to do so. He has been Chair of the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee.
His reward for this political work is to be named Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, a key one for creating new health policy, starting with repealing Obamacare then replacing it with something great. As much as anyone in Congress, the ball is in Greg Walden's court. Do something great.
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| Click: Lovely 15 second ad |
The first step was passing a package of House rules that stops House members from objecting to any legislation that would increase the deficit. Ending Obamacare will increase the deficit. This is not a typo and it is not a secret, and it is not a partisan opinion. Indeed, the House Republican caucus essentially confirmed the Congressional Budget Office conclusion by passing the rule. The nonpartisan and authoritative CBO said, "repealing the ACA would raise federal deficits by $137 billion over the 2016-2025 period" because the government would spend more on Medicare for older Americans and collect less in taxes from higher income households who currently pay surcharges due to the ACA.
But Obamacare is politically unpopular, Republicans campaigned on ending it, and they won tremendous political victories from top to bottom criticizing it. Greg Walden's ads were beautifully produced:
Greg Walden, leading the fight against Obamacare, because President Obama promised one thing we got another: Chaos, Cancellations, Cost Increases. Obamacare has got to go. Protect your health care. Stop Obamacare."
That is it. That was enough, then. They have a safe majority in House, Senate, and the White House.
What to do: Greg Walden reports he has intentions:
"Today’s vote allows House committees to get to work on repealing Obamacare and rebuilding our health care system. Put simply, Obamacare is a mess. We’re ready to begin advancing solutions that will help families, lower costs, and restore fairness in the relationship between patients and their doctors. Critical work lies ahead, and we are up to the task of delivering badly needed relief for patients.”
House Republicans have a website one can visit: ABetterHealthCarePlan.com.
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| ABetterHealthCarePlan.com |
Here is the message: "Imagine a new path forward. Health insurance that provides more choices and better care at lower costs. A system that puts patients and doctors in charge. Provides peace of mind for people with pre-existing conditions. And paves the way for new cures by eliminating senseless regulations. House Republicans have a plan to get there without disrupting existing coverage, giving your family the health care it deserves."
Like the Walden ad, the Republican solution is explained in a beautifully produced ad. There are 27 images in 29 seconds, all reflecting the very best in America.
That is it.
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| Thalidomide kept off the US market |
Democrats will resist and attempt to preserve the popular elements of Obamacare but it is undeniable that Republicans succeeded in making the program unpopular, at least under the name Obamacare.
Republicans are giving no indication that they have any actual plan to meet the goals they outlined, i.e. a new health care system that makes everyone happy.
Obama said the economy had been "driven into a ditch" by Republicans and that this explained why the recovery was slow. Almost immediately this was defined as "an excuse" by the Republicans and that notion stuck. Within a few months the economy was Obama's responsibility and voters were impatient with him, not Republicans. If there is a health care mess the equivalent may well happen to Republicans.
A messaging battle is shaping up. It is inevitable that the public will be badly disappointed. How can they not be? They have been promised better health care at lower cost with your family getting the health care you think it deserves. Democrats will attempt to make certain they are disappointed with Republicans. They took charge. They broke Obamacare. Now they own the result. The recent history of blame for the Great Recession suggests that the Democrats will win that battle.
But the recent history off Trump's success in winning the campaign message battle suggests that Trump could win. Trump is good at making accusations stick. Don't like what we have replaced Obamacare with? Blame Obama.
2 comments:
“Advice to John Lewis—Don’t Go to White House Correspondents Dinner, Unless ....”
As UpClose emphasizes, Trump has no high ground on the “illegitimate president” uproar. His birtherism claims made him fair game. Trump was denounced as a “racist” for attacking the legitimacy of “our first black president”. Due to Democrats’ indiscriminate overuse of the term, the "racist" label no longer packs much of a punch. Still, a punch is punch, so now Trump is being denounced as a racist because he counter-punched Congressman John Lewis’ high profile attack on Trump’s legitimacy. According to the left media, Trump is not allowed to counter-attack based on Lewis’ performance in Congress as “talk” without much action.
That’s correct: We're saying a sitting U.S. Congressman calling the president elect “illegitimate”, who every two years has to raise funds from rich donors to fend off black primary challengers and/or white Republican challengers is off limits to counterattack by Trump. Trump said what several of Lewis’ challengers have said—he has not accomplished a whole lot legislatively. Indeed, Lewis’s Congressional record is not the ammo the outraged left is using to rebuff Trump. Instead, we've devised a condescending chant that 50 years ago Lewis was a colleague of Dr. King who suffered at the hands of racists-- back when the term meant something. To hear CNN, NYT and WP tell it, Lewis is a doddering old war hero, but who apparently hasn’t done much notable during his 26 years in the House.
Democrats in 2016 became the party of celebrated victimhood, characterizing ourselves as caucuses of the oppressed who can become strong only in a coalition with a Hillary or Bernie leading with a morally superior message. Whether its Hillary’s “deplorables” or Bernie’s “one percenters”, we huddle and hug behind a corporate media phalanx in a rhetorically-charged defense against rednecks and billionaires who would victimize us. And so it is when one of our own, like John Lewis, throws stones at the evil giant Twitter troll—we cry victimization. It’s an insult to Lewis. He’s not being defended as much as eulogized, as with Meryl Streep, our celebrity victims, our “national treasures” immune to counter-insult for their own insults. Yet, John Lewis is a scrappy and often abrasive establishment politician, who early on fought not just for civil rights, but to win and keep his seat safe. (See Wikipedia, “John Lewis”, https://goo.gl/UVy2AZ). Indeed, Lewis himself savaged fellow civil rights icon Julian Bond to win the seat in 1987, as the fellow activists turned “rivals, then bitter enemies as they each *** struggled to wrest a prize that shimmered with grail-like significance.” (See, “The Parable of Julian Bond & John Lewis”, Atlanta Magazine, Mar. 1, 1990, https://goo.gl/8BGaET).
Since Congressman Lewis and some of his House colleagues won’t attend the inauguration of an “illegitimate” president put in power by “racists”, “xenophobes”, “depolarables”, “Russians”, and the FBI, I doubt Lewis would attend the annual White House Correspondent’s Dinner if Trump speaks, as most presidents do. Nevertheless, my advice to Lewis is this: Don’t attend unless... you want to remain a celebrated victim of Democrats. That gala dinner is fueled by insulting humor, especially for public figures who, like Lewis, want to dismiss as “illegitimate” the President of the United States. At that dinner in 2012, Barrack Obama belittled, sliced ‘n diced, and humiliated Donald Trump for that very insult. It was pure personal vengeance and political payback. John Lewis could expect the same counter-attack from the president for the same insult.
Political office is no place for victims, and John Lewis is no victim. He’s a fighter who has waged battle against other politicians and presidents, and Democrats and their media should let him do what he does best— -fight.
Why do the terms "less educated" and "religious" always go together?
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