With the failure of the Senate version of Obamacare Repeal and Replace, the Senate Republicans are embarked on a last ditched effort to repeal the Orwellian named Affordable Care Act with the idea of replacing it with something later. But what if that vote fails as well? According to the Washington Examiner, President Donald Trump has his own plan. Let Obamacare fail.
Why Obamacare was designed to fail
One theory that had been promulgated about Obamacare is that it is not the greatest public policy disaster in over a century because of the incompetence of the people who crafted the law and passed it.
It is a Charlie Foxtrot of a law by deliberate design. The idea is that the imploding markets, the sky high premiums and deductibles, and even the initial horrible sign-in application were features and not bugs. The reason for the healthcare system that was Designed To Fail was that it was supposed to lead to what Democrats really want, which is single payer.
The scenario had people becoming so irate about Obamacare that they would become susceptible to the siren call of single payer, government-run healthcare. Forgetting the awfulness of such systems in Canada and Great Britain. Government giving away health care for free was supposed to be preferable to the jury rigged system that is Obamacare.
Single payer would pass, and matters of life and death would be at the pleasure of government bureaucrats.
Just one problem existed for this scenario of single payer becoming the law of the land in America. It depended on Hillary Clinton becoming president.
Donald Trump's gambit
Under the Trump version of the scenario, Obamacare continues to implode as it is already doing.
The Medicaid expansion subsidies start to go away, and the states that were foolish enough to take the deal suddenly are stuck with the full bill. The clamor that something must be done will rise to a crescendo.
Meanwhile, Trump will use his Twitter feed and his considerable rhetorical and media skills to place the blame on the Democrats.
He will refuse to own the failure to repair or repeal it. He will suggest voters need to vote for more Republicans to Congress to give the extra majority required to repeal and replace once and for all.
Trump will be aided by the Democrats' insistence that nothing is wrong with Obamacare that can't be fixed with a few tweaks. Those pronouncements will in short order put Baghdad Bob to shame. Then, when the pressure is the most intense, Trump will propose a free market alternative to Obamacare, strong arm Congress into passing it, and will be a big hero going into 2020.
That, at least, is the theory behind the current politics behind Obamacare. We'll see in due course whether Trump is right or wrong about the matter.
