Saying it again for seemingly the millionth time—I have no idea in what world the editorialists down at the Greensboro News & Record live. In the age of Trump they’ve certainly come up with some brilliant editorials (insert sarcasm) but today’s is a doozy.
Fair enough, President Trump did not effectively lead in the effort to repeal and replace Obamacare–he simply jumped on board with the Republicans’ flawed bill. The bill died–that’s politics. So what does the N&R suggest Trump do to fix our healthcare system? Work with moderate Democrats:
If Obamacare collapses, “the Democrats will get blamed for it,” Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s budget director, said on “Meet the Press” Sunday.
But that’s not how it works. Administering federal health care law is the responsibility of the current president, and one who said he wants everyone to have “great” coverage can’t let Americans lose what they have now. Trump owes them a better effort to keep his word than he’s made so far.
If right-wing Republicans won’t work with him — and they won’t — he should turn to moderate Democrats. He could at least engage them in discussions by reviving his proposal for expanding coverage to more Americans and reducing costs. The most obvious vehicle would be Medicaid, which provided an existing structure to extend health insurance to millions more Americans. There’s potential to pull in even more people, especially in states that refused Medicaid expansion — North Carolina among them. Trump should prod those states to get on board.
For starters—-which moderate Democrats? And if the Democrats had any interest at all in improving Obamacare, then they would have worked with Republicans. Problem is they think Obamacare is working just fine. And to suggest that Trump using a further expansion of Medicaid as an olive branch to non-existent “moderate Democrats” is insane, considering Democrats rejected the bill that would keep the Medicaid expansion in place. Yes I realize it was only a temporary expansion, but if you believe that……insert your own cliche’…….