Republicans have been exploiting their signature promise to repeal and replace Obamacare for seven years:
- It helped them win control of the House in 2010.
- It helped them win control of the House and Senate in 2014.
- It helped them win control of the House, Senate, and White House in 2016.
From day one, some of us tried to warn voters to no avail that Republicans were scamming them for votes. I was especially bemused by the poor whites who rallied Republicans to repeal and replace.
Evidently, they thought Obamacare was part of Muslim Obama’s socialist conspiracy to take away their freedom. But they also thought the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was the best government program since Social Security. In other words, these nincompoops are only just realizing that Obamacare and the ACA are one and the same.
But Trump co-opting repeal and replace for his run to the White House was so patently contrived, I refused to dignify it with a comment.
For the record, though, here are just two examples of my earnest attempts to expose the hollowness of this Republican promise:
Exhibit A
Nothing evokes a Pentecostal-like response at Republican rallies quite like when one of Obama’s wannabe successors declares – with the conviction of a born-again Tartuffe – that his/her ‘first act as president will be to repeal Obamacare.’ Mind you, their declaration is invariably animated by the hope that the Supreme Court will rule the healthcare reform law unconstitutional long before they are faced with the manifestly impossible task of honoring their promise to repeal it.
(“Supreme Court To Rule on Landmark Healthcare Reform,” The iPINIONS Journal, November 23, 2011)
Exhibit B
[D]espite (or to spite) today’s ruling [that Obamacare is constitutional], Republicans are already singing their same old tune about repealing it. In fact, you might think they regard denying poor Americans affordable healthcare as an article of faith, which shall never be broken.
But, just as Obama did not think their challenges to Obamacare worthy of argument before the Supreme Court, I do not think their cult-like pledge to repeal Obamacare worthy of any further comment in this forum.
I will only add that anyone who votes this time around for a presidential candidate based on his/her promise to repeal Obamacare is a certifiable fool. For, as George W. Bush once tried to say: fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.
(“Supreme Court Upholds Obamacare – Again…,” The iPINIONS Journal, June 25, 2015)
Alas, that Trump is president of the United States proves that far too many voters were all too willing to make themselves once, twice, three times a fool.
But frankly, in this context, Republicans are even more unconscionable than Nigerian 419 scammers. After all, Nigerians were merely messing with people’s cash; Republicans were messing with their health.
Well, today they were finally forced to put up or shut up on their promise to repeal Obamacare and replace it with Trumpcare:
House Republican leaders, facing a revolt among conservatives and moderates in their ranks, pulled legislation to repeal the Affordable Care Act from consideration on the House floor Friday afternoon in a significant defeat for President Trump on the first legislative showdown of his presidency.
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan conceded, ‘We’re going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future.’
(New York Times, March 24, 2017)
When Trump finally conceded that Obama was born in the United States, I did not think it was worthy of comment. Republicans finally failing to repeal and replace Obamacare is even less worthy. Except that I suspect “Shyster Don” can’t wait to see “repeal and replace” join “birther” in the dustbin of political tropes. Because, for him, this was just another con job.
What’s more, this farcical, shameless loser is already spinning his “yuge” humiliation as “the best thing that could have happened” — as he sets up his next con: taxing the poor more to give more to the rich. Lucky for him, it’s axiomatic in American politics that Democrats will always conspire with Republicans to ensure the rich get richer and the poor get poorer
I pity the sick fools who bought this promise hook, line, and sinker.
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* This commentary was originally published on Friday at 8:48 p.m.