Obama slams GOP healthcare bill
UNITED STATES: The text of the Senate’s 142-page Obamacare repeal bill had been public for just a few hours yesterday when the nation’s most influential private citizen weighed in - Barack Obama.
The plan is ‘‘not a health care bill,’’ Obama declared in a 939-word message to his nearly 53 million followers on Facebook. ‘‘It’s a massive transfer of wealth from middle-class and poor families to the richest people in America.’’
The 44th president did not mention his successor, Donald Trump, but his scathing criticism and urgent tone - imploring his supporters to speak out against the ‘‘fundamental meanness at the core of this legislation’’ - set up a direct public fight with the current White House occupant over the future of the nation’s health care system.
‘‘I am very supportive of the Senate #HealthcareBill,’’ Trump wrote in a tweet a short while later. ‘‘Look forward to making it really special! Remember, ObamaCare is dead.’’
The high-stakes confrontation is virtually unprecedented in modern times between a former and current president, and it runs counter to Obama’s own professed interest in receding from the limelight. Just days before departing the White House, he joked that he looked forward to not hearing himself ‘‘talk so darn much.’’
Beyond his self-deprecation, Obama explained that he wanted to afford respect to Trump to pursue his own agenda, citing the precedent set by George W. Bush’s infrequent public statements after Obama took office in 2009. Instead, since Trump’s inauguration, Obama has made clear that he does not intend to stay on the sidelines as Trump, with help from Republican lawmakers, seeks to dismantle his legacy.
Obama spoke out in January after Trump implemented a travel ban on citizens of seven majorityMuslim nations, declaring that ‘‘American values are at stake’’ and that he was ‘‘heartened’’ by protests across the country. This month, Obama criticised Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate accord that his administration signed in 2015, ruing ‘‘an absence of American leadership.’’
But it is on health care that Obama has perhaps the most to lose and, with his lengthy Facebook statement, has signalled his intention to have the most political influence. Though he opened his message with an attempt to elevate the debate - emphasising the need to listen to those with opposing points of view - he quickly framed Republican motivations as purely partisan.
‘‘I recognise that repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act has become a core tenet of the Republican Party,’’ Obama wrote, suggesting that the GOP is acting simply to undo ‘‘something that Democrats did.’’ His mention of ‘‘meanness’’ in the Senate bill was a swipe at Trump having called the House version of the repeal legislation ‘‘mean’’ during a private meeting with Republican senators last week.
The fight over the Affordable Care Act, the former president’s biggest legislative victory, has sharply divided the two major political parties from the start. The bill was approved by Congress without a single Republican vote, after which the GOP successfully used it as a campaign issue against Democrats in the 2010 midterms that led to Republicans taking control of the House.
Now the tables have turned as Republicans attempt to make good on their years-long pledge to overturn the law. House Republicans needed two attempts before they successfully crafted and approved their own repeal bill without bipartisan support.
- Washington Post