Must-Read: Ezra Klein: Trump’s weak closing argument on health care — and why it matters
Must-Read: Ezra Klein: Trump’s weak closing argument on health care — and why it matters: “President Trump’s closing argument was weak…
…“doesn’t include anything even remotely resembling an affirmative case for the actual bill House Republicans have to vote on.” This may be because Trump doesn’t actually understand the bill they’re voting on…. Lacking a persuasive case to make on the merits, Trump has defaulted to an unpersuasive case on the politics… telling Republicans that they’ll have “a political problem” if they don’t pass the AHCA…. At times, he’s resorted to explicit threats — “I’m gonna come after you”….
The American Health Care Act isn’t Obamacare…. The particular ways in which it is not Obamacare look worse, not better, for Republicans…. Trump, at 40 percent in the latest Gallup poll, is significantly less popular than Obama was when the Affordable Care Act passed. So his protective effect looks weaker…. The American Health Care Act, however, starts up in 2018… 14 million people will become uninsured that year…. You don’t need to be a political genius to intuit the chaos that will create….
By the time Obamacare passed, it was clearly unpopular, and it was clearly going to endanger vulnerable Democrats who voted for it. But it was also a bill Democrats believed in substantively, and many voted for it because they thought its passage would be worth the sacrifice of their seats. But GOP leadership is rushing legislation that has little enthusiastic support from stakeholders, policy experts, key Republican voices, or really anyone outside of Paul Ryan and Donald Trump…. When Trump instead appears before them and tells them that cynical political calculations are why they should pass an unpopular bill backed by an unpopular president that will cause a nightmarish amount of upheaval in an election year, it’s not the world’s most convincing case. Which isn’t to say the AHCA won’t pass tomorrow. Stranger things have happened…