Set Up to Fail

Easier to get in than get out

Greg Walden deserves Better.    He got set up to fail big time.

The entire GOP got to promise "something terrific".   Republican Congressman Greg Walden got stuck with actually doing something about it.  And now the media is focusing on him as having been the "GOP Attack Dog", like it was mostly him who got the public to hate Obamacare so the focus is on him to fix it.

Well, the focus is on him to fix it but he had lots of company as he charged into this political tar pit.   He had company from fellow Republicans, from Fox News, from talk radio hosts and callers, from the Tea Party, and especially from the presidential candidates.   It was mainstream GOP doctrine: Obamacare is a disaster and we will replace it with something great.

Now Donald Trump is promising:

"We're going to have insurance for everybody.  There was a philosophy in some circles that if you can't pay for it, you don't get it. That's not going to happen with us."   Trump said the public "can expect to have great health care.  It will be in much simplified form.  Much less expensive and much better."

Readers should take a moment and consider how high Trump set the bar:

    1. Universal insurance.

    2. Available to people who can't pay.

    3. Great health quality

    4. Simple

    5. Inexpensive and better, both.

Greg Walden was chair of the RCCC, the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee, for the 2016 cycle.  He was popular among Republicans and successful in promoting Republican congressmen.  He helped frame the GOP attack on Obamacare, but the notion that he was the leading "Attack Dog" is a reputation which has emerged only now--now that the focus is on the House Energy and Commerce Committee and on Walden to lead the effort to fix it.

Plugging holes

Trump promised simplicity.   Simplicity will be impossible.  Even Medicare--a cover everyone  age 65 or older--is complex.  

Greg Walden is already scrambling to fix holes and add complexity.  He is getting headlines for introducing special legislation to assure that people with pre-existing conditions can be covered.   It is news that he got "face time" with Trump to make special arrangements regarding prescription drugs.   I have heard Walden in two different venues say he would close a loophole that allowed people who have substantial assets, but low income, qualify for Obamacare.  He said we need a lottery-winner loophole to be closed in the event that a lottery winner takes the winnings and simply spends down capital rather than invest his winnings into income generating assets.  I cite this example to make a simple point: Greg Walden is not looking for radical simplicity, e.g. medicare for all, or return to the status quo prior to Obamacare.  His mind is on locating and plugging loopholes, the path to a long, complex document--a fatal flaw of Obamacare and before it Hillary Clinton's own Health Care proposal of 1994.

The story of a fractious GOP unable to face up to the duties of its office is not simply a Democratic talking point.  It is mainstream thinking, common knowledge, and voiced by powerful voices within the GOP and mainstream in conservative publications.  Typical of the genre is this article from Forbes Magazine.

Click Here. Forbes: 8 Things about Replacing Obamacare

Will voters be satisfied with a replacement that is the "best possible under difficult circumstances?"  A replacement that is incomplete, expensive, devilishly complex, and one that has multiple sympathetic critics?   In a rational world the "best possible" is a good outcome.  But "best possible under difficult circumstances" is what defines Obamacare and people didn't like it.

Trump and Walden's GOP colleagues set the bar higher for Greg Walden.  Walden himself is scrambling.  He is telling constituents that he is trying, that he is "working on it," that "we have work to do" and we are "taking a look."  

His caution is not matched by his Party and his president.  They are telling voters to expect something wonderful.  Something cheap and universal and simple.  They are setting up Greg Walden for failure.

Possibly Donald Trump will have Walden's back and defend the legislative solution as a triumph.  But accepting blame for an unpopular outcome has not been Trump's habit.   Greg Walden is in the tar pit--unless, of course, he finds a replacement program that is cheap, universal, and simple.