GOP should stop digging a hole and work with Dems on Obamacare

The fact that Donald Trump and other Republicans are willing to “let Obamacare fail” illustrates that the Republican Party has lost its moral compass. Because Republicans were unwilling to consider working with Democrats to improve the Affordable Care Act, they were doomed to try developing an alternative health care plan that satisfied the right wing of the party, and this failed, predictably.

The right wing of the GOP hates entitlement programs almost as much as they hate taxes. They don’t care about the human cost of not having a good health care plan — in fact, I suspect that most of them would prefer for programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid to fail.

It’s way past time for the GOP to regain control of its values, abandoning the extremists that are destroying it from within. And for health care, it’s way past time for the GOP to develop improvements to the ACA. If the right wing objects, let them.

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The first rule of holes: If you are in a hole, stop digging! It is obvious that the Republicans are in a deep hole with their health care legislation. Their recent attempts to extricate themselves have just succeeded in digging the hole deeper.

And now the president has essentially said, “Keep on digging!” There actually is a way to get out of the hole if the Republicans were willing to be real public servants instead of ideologues. Join with the Democrats to craft a bipartisan measure that would improve health care for all Americans. Send letters of 150 words or fewer to openforum@denverpost.com or 101 W. Colfax Ave., Suite 800, Denver, CO, 80202. Please include full name, city and phone number. Contact information is for our purposes only; we will not share it with anyone else. You can reach us by telephone at 303-954-1331.