Big fat ‘no’ to ‘skinny’
Skinny was an understated adjective for a bill threatening to deny tens of millions of Americans access to health care and disrupt a sixth of the economy. The “skinny repeal” defeated by the Senate might be more aptly described as sneaky, scary or — as Republican Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse put it Thursday — “pretty crappy.”
Having failed at every turn to undo the Affordable Care Act under pressure from President Trump, mainly because the law he derides as “Obamacare” is meeting crucial needs, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell devised a last desperate attempt. The idea is a bill that sustains a bare, partisan majority by claiming to repeal the most controversial provisions of the 2010 health care reform, such as the mandate to obtain medical insurance.
Thankfully, this scheme failed.
Passing such a measure would have been a travesty. First, to scrap “only” the individual mandate, for example, was to pretend that such unpopular requirements don’t enable the ACA’s popular results, such as the availability of coverage regardless of existing illness. Moreover, the bill would have served as a Trojan Horse allowing a House-Senate conference committee to draft new legislation something like earlier “repeal and replace” bills, which the Senate has been unable to pass for good reasons. And the skinny repeal, which did not even exist as legislation well into the Senate’s second day of debate, endured no public or legislative scrutiny; it was reportedly cooked up over a GOP lunch Thursday. “On the day that the Senate was supposed to vote, the future of American health care may have gotten an overhaul between the salad course and the entree,” said Ron Wyden, D-Ore.
Indeed, there was a rare, robust consensus that this was a farce. “This is why our approval rating is 9 percent,” said Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo. Several Republican senators even sought assurances that the House would not pass the repeal they were planning to vote for. Meanwhile, Sen. Steve Daines, RMont., offered legislation he did not support in an effort to bait Democrats into a tangential debate about universal government coverage. “I think we should vote no on this,” he said of his own amendment.
As Sasse said of the entire spectacle, “It kind of makes a sham of the joke that this is the greatest deliberative body on the face of the Earth.” Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who can expect the best care available for his newly diagnosed brain cancer, roundly deplored the state of affairs while acknowledging, “We’ve all played some role in it. Certainly I have.”
McCain delivered a decisive “no” vote. It was a courageous and principled stand against partisan games — and for many others’ health care — by a genuine American hero.