Flake, Ducey (almost) sold us down the river
Last week, Sen. Jeff Flake and Gov. Doug Ducey did the right thing to advance their political careers. Now, maybe, they will do the right thing … period. Sen. John McCain is a little preoccupied these days receiving treatment for his recently diagnosed cancer.
The brain surgery he underwent and that gut-wrenching cancer diagnosis didn’t stop McCain from heading back to Washington to cast the vote that killed the disastrous “skinny repeal” of the Affordable Care Act. Flake voted for the bill. And Ducey supported its passage. Those decisions will play well with hard-core Republican primary voters and party bigwigs.
But it could have been a disaster for ordinary citizens, ordinary Arizonans, if McCain hadn’t voted the way he did.
Now, the senator and the governor have a chance to help set things right.
Flake has a primary election next year. If he had voted against the bill, like McCain, his Republican opponent (or opponents) would have hammered him for it. So he voted for it.
But now that he’s covered his political you-know-what, it would be a very good thing for Arizona and America for Flake to work with other lawmakers, including Democrats, to improve the health-care system.
Ducey could, and should, work with him.
The governor believes in repealing “Obamacare,” but he wants some protections for his state’s people and his state’s pocketbook. He was working with McCain on amendments they wanted attached to any Senate bill.
Since that bill is dead, Flake can now work with Ducey, other governors, other senators, other representatives and — please — members of the general public to identify trouble spots in the health-care system and come up with solutions.
They could knock off the rhetoric and repair rather than replace.
President Donald Trump does not want to fix the health-care system. He has said as much. He is doing all that he can to make the Affordable Care Act “implode.”
He would then declare some type of victory, even though such an implosion would make casualties of millions of Americans.
Republicans have had seven years to come up with a replacement plan for the Affordable Care Act.
They wasted all that time trying only to dismantle the health-care law, with no idea how to put it back together. There’s time now. There’s an opportunity for (dare we say it) cooperation.
It’s what Sen. McCain argued for in his speech to the Senate. It’s why he voted against the “skinny repeal.”
Flake and Ducey did what they needed to do to stay elected.
How about doing something, now, for the people who elected them?