EDITORIAL: Capitol Hill malpractice prevails

President Trump relearned a lesson in deal-making last week — you can’t make a deal with an individual or individuals who simply aren’t interested.

That’s what happened Friday when Trump agreed with House Speaker Paul Ryan’s recommendation to pull back the American Health Care Act from consideration in the House, where it was DOA.

No one expected any Democrats to support the repeal and replacement of President Obama’s signature legislation, the Affordable Care Act. But after seven years of railing against the so-called Obamacare legislation, Republican leaders were unable to find the votes they needed within their own majority party to pass the bill. While there were GOP moderates who opposed the AHCA, the killing blow was struck by the Freedom Caucus, whose membership wasn’t interested in compromising on anything. On Sunday. U.S. Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, announced he was leaving the caucus, noting that “saying no is easy, leading is hard …”

The AHCA failure illustrates quite a few things. The first is that some politicians will cut off their nose to spite their faces. By refusing to work with GOP leadership and the White House, the Freedom Caucus ensured that the ACA its caucus members purport to hate has survived.

Second, Republicans spent a great deal of time over the years saying why the ACA was bad and needed to be replaced, but they didn’t spend nearly enough time coming up with a replacement that also was an improvement. Our guess is they never really expected to have the chance to replace it. The AHCA had budget benefits based on Congressional Budget Office estimates, but it also reduced the number of people who would be covered, which would have kept more Americans out of doctors’ offices where they could get preventative care while placing more pressure on emergency rooms. The failure of the AHCA is a political setback for Trump, who pledged to get rid of the ACA, but it also may end up being the best deal he didn’t make. While he worked to fulfill his promise, which will please his supporters, he isn’t saddled with problems that would have emerged from an implemented AHCA.

Third, it gave Democrats — many of whom are euphoric in what they see as a great political victory, though it was a case in which the Republicans forfeited the game — a false sense of security. The ACA is flawed, and its structure places a burden on middle-class Americans who don’t qualify for federal subsidies. Insurance providers have opted out of offering ACA coverage. While the District of Columbia exchange, where federal elected officials and their staff can obtain coverage, may be robust, that’s not the case “back home,” including here in Southwest Georgia. The problems with Obamacare aren’t going away.

One would think that members of Congress could focus on the common good, that the Republicans and Democrats toward the middle could come up with a solution that’s good for America, one that would not be dependent upon hard-line ideologues on the right or left for passage.

Instead, Washington malpractice prevails. The “doctors” on Capitol Hill are content to send a seriously ill American health care system “patient” home with a couple of aspirins while the condition continues to get worse. The only concern seems to be which party of doctors gets the most political blame when the patient finally dies.