Where’s the replacement?

It was discouraging to learn that the major campaign promise of President Donald Trump to “on day one repeal and replace Obamacare” will not be met. I was so looking forward to learning about the great replacement plan that would increase accessibility, expand coverage and substantially reduce costs.

Perhaps I expected too much. I thought all of those who opposed the Affordable Care Act, such as House Speaker Paul Ryan, would have worked the past seven-plus years to fine-tune their replacement plan. I thought Ryan had even said that he had a plan ready for the president to sign on “day one.” Apparently it wasn’t “great” enough.

So I reluctantly accepted that the unveiling of the great, new, plan would have to wait until Jan. 27. Now that date has passed and we’re being told that it may take a year or more to come up with a truly great plan. Is it possible that we’ve been misled? Or, heaven forbid, is this an example of the inability to govern?

The delay is troubling because it seems as if the longer it takes to unveil a better health care plan, the support for replacing Obamacare is deteriorating. For example, I heard that some Americans didn’t know that Obamacare was the ACA. This suggests that they don’t want to lose the health care coverage of the ACA but only want to get rid of the name attached to it.

Maybe Trump, Ryan and cohorts can find ways to tweak the ACA and rename it. This would allow the president to proclaim that another campaign promise has been met, thus rewarding those who voted for him based on the promise to repeal Obamacare. At the same time we would not be abandoning those who desperately need governmental supported health care coverage.

Sounds like a win-win to me, and something that could be done very quickly.

David L. Cronin Elm Grove