There’s no shortage of articles praising Paul Ryan as the intellectual leader of the Republican Party. The relatively young, fit, congressman hails from a swing state and establishment conservatives welcomed his rise to Speaker of the House, even if he didn’t really want the job.
Well maybe he shouldn’t have taken it.
The GOP’s Obamacare replacement bill is nothing short of a pathetic farce and even political novices with little-to-no understanding of health-care policy can see how this plan doesn’t even remotely resemble a repeal of the Affordable Care Act. Despite constant assurances from Ryan that he would replace the ACA with something that was broadly popular and fiscally sustainable, Ryan has all but guaranteed its permanence (at least until Democrats take control of both chambers and force single-payer upon us).
In the words of health-care expert Avik Roy, the “House GOP’s ObamaCare replacement will make coverage unaffordable for millions.” According to Roy, the bill desires “to trap millions [of people] in poverty.” Cool bill, Paul. What have you been doing for all those years in Congress? I know you developed quite the fetish for tax credits, but couldn’t you have developed one for affordable health-care too?
But, hey, Ryan gave us health-care savings accounts! Isn’t that what Americans were clamoring for? So much for fiscal responsibility—Ryan didn’t even bother to have the Congressional Budget Office score the bill. Here I stupidly thought he was a numbers guy.
The fact that the bill leaves most of Obamacare’s regulations in place, implements a 30 percent penalty on new plans for individuals if people don’t have coverage for more than two months, and does absolutely nothing to decouple health insurance from employers is craven enough, but did Ryan even ask any reputable organization or group to endorse this dumpster fire?
Because I can’t find any that will. The Heritage Foundation hates it, so do a number of prominent senators and congressmen, as well as the Koch Brothers’ Americans for Prosperity. I thought Ryan was supposed to be buddy-buddy with all of these members of the right-wing conspiracy. I guess this bill was so bad that they couldn’t even throw their buddy Paul a bone and at least pretend that he didn’t destroy his political capital like a cheap Cessna that just ran out of gas.
The bill has no chance of passing the Senate—nor should it. But that won’t stop Democrats from seizing on the sloppiness in which it was rolled out and use it as another example of why Republican’s can’t be trusted to govern. Even after the House’s plan inevitably fails, premiums will still increase and Republicans will be stuck with owning Obamacare’s failings while simultaneously get mocked for being incapable of doing anything about it.
Ryan has lost even more allies because of this misstep. Grassroots conservatives will continue to mistrust him and the moderate wing of the GOP will be more worried about holding onto their seats in the upcoming 2018 elections than work with him on any other potentially controversial bills, like tax reform. In theory, Ryan could try another round with health-care reform, but forgive me for not having much confidence in the guy. Clearly he’s not the adult in the room.
Maybe Democrats have been right all along, maybe the GOP really is the party of stupid. Only a group of idiots could roll out such a poorly-crafted piece of legislation that it actually makes the old Obamacare look good. Ryan’s not standing in the corner with a dunce cap on, he’s proudly wearing it and smiling in front of the American people.
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