Republican senators slow-walk Obamacare, fearing failure

OPINION:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Obamacare is going to be tough to repeal and that the bill he’s bringing to the floor for vote probably won’t meet voters’ expectations.

And with that, out the window flew any grand vision the GOP held for 2018. As Sen. Ted Cruz has previously warning: Obamacare failure will bring “catastrophic” consequences for the Republicans.

Repealing Obamacare was a core Republican promise, one constituents have been hearing for years. So of course it comes as a surprise when votes gave Republicans what they needed to make that repeal vow a reality, and elected, over the course of a few years, a majority House, a majority Senate and a GOP leader in the White House.

McConnell may be speaking political reality. But voters only know this: What’s the holdup?

And that blunt, somewhat hostile question comes because they’re also thinking: You had years to come up with a repeal plan, GOP. You even voted in the House on several repeal plans. But now that you have majorities across all the political aisles, you suddenly have no plan?

From The Hill: “[McConnell] says he will bring a bill to the floor for a vote, but is not making any promises whether he will get at least 50 members of the 52-member Senate GOP conference to back it. … McConnell warned in an interview with Reuters that passing healthcare reform will be tougher than tax reform, another of President [Donald] Trump’s top priorities.”

This just isn’t going to fly with voters.

McConnell may be simply lowering expectations now, so as to avoid a massive outcry later, when the bill fails — or, when a dramatically watered version of the bill is all that the GOP is able to pass.

But again: This isn’t going to fly with voters. A promise is a promise; a vow, a vow. And the Republicans just made far too many promises and vows to fully repeal Obamacare — and for far too many years — to get away with anything less. If the GOP doesn’t deliver on this, voters in 2018 will take action, and it’ll be action that puts smiles on the faces of Democrats, not Republicans.