Trumpcare is dead on arrival

The rollout of the GOP’s long-awaited Obamacare replacement, the American Health Care Act, was a disaster. Instead of unveiling the bill with fanfare, it was leaked to the media on Monday night, which meant that there was precious little spin to help conservatives digest it. The following morning, Representative Jason Chaffetz of Utah went on TV to play pitchman, and ended up dominating headlines by telling poor people they have to choose between a smartphone and health insurance. Fake President Trump embraced the bill, but also left a lot of daylight, creating an opening for congressional Republicans and conservative activists to criticize it. Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price tried to patch things up by appearing at Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s midday lie jamboree, but came across as squirrelly and unprepared—his main argument for the bill was that it was short, as he stood next to a very tall stack of papers meant to represent Obamacare/big government. By evening, prominent Republicans were proclaiming that the AHCA was DOA and conservatives in the House were in revolt. “I don’t think it’s ever going to arrive in the Senate,” Kentucky Senator Rand Paul told CNN. “I think it’s dead on arrival in the House.”

The AHCA has achieved one thing in its short and worthless life, however: It sucks so much that people have come together from across the political spectrum to proclaim just how much it sucks. Paul branded it “Obamacare Lite” and tweeted (hurriedly, it seems): “It will not pass. Conservarives [sic] are not going to take it.” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D) said it would “Make America Sick Again.” Heritage Action CEO Michael Needham, who is scary conservative, said it “not only accepts the flawed progressive premises of Obamacare but expands on them.” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D) tweeted that it “forces millions of Americans to pay more for less care.” Reason’s Peter Suderman wrote, “This bill, and the aura of secrecy surrounding it, seems more like a wish and a hope that this essential problem goes away rather than an attempt to truly solve it.” The Club for Growth saw an opportunity to own House Speaker Paul Ryan, dubbing this “warmed-over substitute for government-run health care” as “RyanCare.” And the Cato Institute’s Michael F. Cannon wrote, “This bill is a train wreck waiting to happen.”