Reliable sources in Congress indicate that Republican leadership is considering tilting their Obamacare repeal and replace legislation to the right in an effort to tamp down some of the hostility emanating from the conservative groups who make a living opposing GOP leadership.
The House speaker evidently believes he will be able to keep Republican “no” votes below the 21-vote threshold necessary to save the bill with a combination of provisions to add a work requirement for Medicaid recipients as a sop to tea party types enraged about retaining a massive new federal entitlement and increased subsidies for seniors hard hit by a rollback of tax credits provided under Obamacare. Hard-line opponents of Speaker Ryan’s bill in the House are pushing for even more concessions, like the elimination of the tax credits that prevent the CBO from scoring the repeal as even more of a bloodbath in terms of loss of coverage than they already do.
All of which is an argument for why it was a very bad idea to have ever led with Obamacare repeal to begin with. The oft-heard procedural argument that repeal had to come first since it needed to be done through reconciliation always masked the fact that the ordering of legislative priorities is essentially a surrogate debate over what the policy priorities of the new administration ought to be.
No matter how you slice it or what the policy merits are of the repeal and replace plan devised by Ryan and his allies, repeal of the Affordable Care Act was bound to be a political loser for Republicans for one simple reason: The constituency most committed to overturning Obamacare will be most disappointed at the relatively meager results of repealing the law they have become convinced is to blame for all the nation’s health care maladies. The question of potential loss of coverage aside, if healthcare affordability doesn’t improve dramatically, and in short order, Republicans own the disillusionment that results.
It has been a big gamble to allow Republican leadership to prioritize Obamacare repeal over the more pressing discussion the country should be having over job creation, economic growth, reducing the tax and regulatory burden strangling recovery, and the size and scope of the federal budget, all of which were much more central to the themes of the campaign. While repealing Obamacare must be achieved, it deserves a thoughtful and earnest discussion, committee hearings, testimony, in short, the building of a consensus by means of a thorough and honest debate.
The hijacking of the Trump agenda by putting repeal of the ACA first has caused confusion and consternation in the ranks and recalls the Bush administration’s push to privatize Social Security after the successful re-election of 2004. While it had been the long-standing goal of a small band of inside-the-Beltway pundits and policy wonks, it was not what President Bush had campaigned on, and after a bruising (and losing) battle, he had expended an inordinate amount of political capital and lost any momentum he might have been able to use on more relevant second-term priorities.
To wrest control back over the policy agenda, the president needs to take command of the narrative and change the conversation with typical Trumpian panache by resorting to a massive, unprecedented number of recess appointments across all of the agencies of government next month. This would have the bracing, immediate effect of killing two very annoying birds with one stone: the slow-rolling of his nominees in the Senate, and the passive refusal to implement his executive orders and regulatory reforms in the federal agencies.
It would also have the virtue of being enormously controversial and driving his opponents into paroxysms of impotent, sputtering rage since they would be unable to do a damn thing about it. No matter the outcome of the first swipe at Obamacare repeal, it is time to press the “reset” button with the deep bureaucracy and career politicians in Washington. Recess appointments on an unprecedented scale just might be the way to go about it.
Robert Wasinger served in senior advisory and liaison roles in President Donald Trump‘s campaign and transition team, after extensive experience on Capitol Hill.
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