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Repeal and Replace. Repeal and Replace. Repeal …

Repeal and replace.  Simple enough on the campaign trail.  We heard this promise in 2010, when voters gave the House to Republicans.  We heard it again in 2012, when voters gave them the Senate.  Despite controlling Congress, Obamacare remained the law of the land.  Candidate Donald Trump, along with most Republican members of Congress, promised repeal and replace last year.

Republicans now have their largest electoral majority in nearly a century, and repeal and replace is spinning its wheels, like an old Pontiac stuck in the snow.

Some think a grand bill is still possible, particularly Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell.  Others are skeptical.  Senators Rand Paul and Mike Lee favor a two-pronged approach: repeal first then repeal later.  Herein lies the problem.  Republicans can’t agree on anything.

Democrats had no such problem in 2010 when they passed Obamacare.  The Bernie coalition didn’t get a single-payer plan as they wanted.  Some wanted higher Medicaid reimbursement for their states, as in the “Cornhusker Kickback.”  But they came together and passed Obamacare, each Democrat getting most but not all of what he wanted.

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Healthcare’s Fake News Epidemic

Fake news has replaced responsible journalism. It’s hard to know what to believe. It wasn’t long ago that supermarket tabloids like National Enquirer were considered fake news. Now it seems the Enquirer and TMZ may be more reliable sources of accurate news than the New York Times or Washington Post.

Government agencies aren’t immune from the fake news trend either. The Congressional Budget Office describes itself as, “Strictly nonpartisan; conducts objective, impartial analysis; and hires its employees solely on the basis of professional competence without regard to political affiliation.”

I’ll bet most newspapers and television news networks say the same about their own objectivity.

The CBO analyzed the American Health Care Act of 2017, a lame effort by Republicans to repeal and replace Obamacare.  Passed by the House, it’s now on to “the greatest deliberative body in the world.”

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