Cornyn's suggestion to 'do nothing' about ACA still gives Dems leverage

While many Republicans and conservative "thinkers" have suggested that it would be better to do nothing about Obamacare, otherwise referred to as the Affordable Care Act (Aca), and to just let it implode; Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-TX) "planted the seeds of suggestion" again last Tuesday. His statement was made while lawmakers from both sides were scrambling to do something about the Health Care Law. President Trump has publicly said throughout the year that he would rather see Obamacare implode if Republicans were unable to repeal the bill.

Cornyn would rather do nothing

According to a report by Politico titled: "GOP split over fixing or gutting Obamacare as deadline looms", when asked about the bipartisan effort that Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) were working on to shore up insurance companies that are in the ACA exchange, Cornyn went back to his hardline position. He said that all he could see in the negotiations were more bailouts. It was here that he suggested that it may be better to do nothing at all.

The Politico article said that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was unsure about whether to continue the repeal effort with Republicans' partisan legislation or make a more bipartisan effort to fix it.

In his speech on the Senate floor after the last failure to repeal the ACA in July, McConnell suggested -- reluctantly -- that it was time to consider what kind of ideas Democrats could come up with. But since the failure, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has been pitching his block grant repeal bill which he says now has 15 Republicans supporting it.

What doing nothing does

In fact, Congress is now up against a September 30 expiration date to still be able to use procedural powers to repeal it, while insurance companies have until the 27th to sign up. The option to do nothing would certainly cause President Trump to do his part to kill the bill. Already, from the beginning of this year, the administration has taken money that was supposed to be used to advertise enrollment for Obamacare and used it to make anti-ACA ads to promote the idea that the health care law was failing.

President Trump has already acknowledged that he can withhold monthly subsidy payments that go to marketplace insurers. More recently, the administration announced that they would start making cuts to advertising for next year's enrollment. Making cuts to the insurers however, would already cause those in the marketplace to increase their premiums. There is no doubt that the same would happen if GOP lawmakers did nothing.

But if that were to happen, there is no doubt that Republicans would draw more of the blame towards themselves, as they come up against another deadline; the one for mid-term elections.