Charlotte Observer: The last big Republican lie on health care
After the Senate’s health care bill didn’t pass, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he will vote for a full repeal of the ACA. Following this breakthrough, Trump tweeted that he will just let the ACA fail. But what they don’t acknowledge is that the ACA is not failing. The GOP claims the ACA is failing, but they’re wrong – it’s stabilizing. They’re constantly misleading the American public about their health care plans, even trying to discredit the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. They just don’t like that the CBO reports the truth – that if the GOP repeals the ACA, 32 million Americans will lose their health care.
Don’t believe Republicans about Obamacare, because the GOP has been wrong again and again – often intentionally so – about the Affordable Care Act. It’s not dying, as lawmakers insist. It’s stabilizing, and it could be made stronger if Republicans worked with Democrats to fix its flaws.
Don’t believe Republicans about their health care solutions, because they have too often misled Americans about what their legislation would accomplish. That includes the White House encouraging Americans to ignore dire estimates about Republican bills from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. That also includes McConnell secretly telling moderate Republicans last week that Medicaid cuts in the Senate health care bill would never actually happen.
Don’t believe Republicans about just letting Obamacare die because being inattentive – or worse, sabotaging the bill by cutting off subsidies to insurers – could result in a health care (and political) disaster. Insurers want stability; without it, premiums will spike and millions will lose coverage.
Most of all, don’t believe Republicans about finding a viable replacement for the Affordable Care Act, because if the last six months have shown us anything, it’s that the party in power is incapable of doing so.