After Trumpcare
Republicans wanted to repeal Obamacare and gut Medicaid. Instead they galvanized the push for Medicare for All.
President Trump shaking hands with House speaker Paul Ryan prior to his address to a joint session of Congress on February 28, 2017. Office of the Speaker / Twitter
The life of Trumpcare was, to repurpose Thomas Hobbes’s words, “nasty, brutish, and short.”
Born in March in the Republican-controlled House, Trumpcare succumbed in the Senate this past week thanks to its fundamentally defective design and pitiable unpopularity, along with the relentless pummeling it received from enraged constituents across the country. After a dramatic vote Thursday night on the final “skinny” version of repeal, it seems safe to say that Trumpcare is now finally where it belongs: six feet under.
The ramifications of this saga will be many and long lasting. One possible effect is a rather paradoxical one: Trumpcare’s architects were intent on undermining the progressive elements of the health care system (for instance, by gradually squeezing Medicaid and degrading protections for the chronically ill), yet they may have wound up bolstering them — most notably, by sparking widespread indignation and resistance.
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