Repeal-and-replace attempt was doomed from the start

Kathleen Parker

It wasn’t quite a wicked-witch-is-dead Munchkin happy dance, but the white noise of foregone conclusions drowned out Republicans’ relatively muted regret over their failure to repeal and replace Obamacare.

It was never gonna happen. Not no how.

Partly this is because the GOP version of reform would have first done harm to our most vulnerable citizens — the elderly, the disabled and the poor. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, cited drastic Medicaid cuts as her reason for withholding support. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul also said he wouldn’t support the bill because it didn’t go far enough in repealing Obamacare.

When two more GOP senators — Mike Lee of Utah and Jerry Moran of Kansas — defected Monday night, the deal was undone. Lee said the bill failed to repeal all of the Obamacare taxes. He also said the bill didn’t go far enough in lowering premiums for middle-class families or in loosening costly regulations.

Thus, the weekslong tornado of hot tempers and chill winds culminated Tuesday morning when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell realized he didn’t have enough votes.

During almost a decade of writing sporadically about health care in its various iterations, I’ve interviewed dozens of people from a mix of related fields — medical, business, legislative and political. Not once have I found a single person who thought the GOP could pull off a repeal and replace. Why?

Firstly, because the vast majority of Americans are fundamentally opposed to allowing others to suffer. And secondly, sort of, the ACA affects one-sixth of the U.S. economy. How does one untangle a knot of 20 million strings? Why not just repeal and replace California and call it a day? It would be easier.

The fact is, Obamacare was never perfect nor should anyone have expected it to be. Today, we have a health care system in pitiful disrepair, as insurance companies opt out of exchanges, premiums continue to climb, and healthy young people forgo premiums that would have subsidized coverage for unhealthy, older Americans and the less fortunate.

The central question is: How do you make it both cost-effective as well as fair?

Many Americans simply don’t see the fairness in a system that requires them to pay high premiums for others’ poor health, some of which is, let’s face it, resulting from poor lifestyle choices. Why, indeed, should a single, childless 30-year-old male who runs 3 miles a day, eats rationally, doesn’t drink, smoke or take drugs, be saddled with premiums to cover pregnancy, abortion, alcoholism, addiction, or an abundance of health consequences resulting from obesity and inertia?

For that matter, why should women have to subsidize men’s sexual dysfunction curatives when, by the way, men don’t have to pony up for women’s medically appropriate intercessions?

I’m sorry if this sounds heartless; the brain calls it reality.

Since McConnell’s repeal-only idea seemed doomed Tuesday after GOP Sens. Collins, Shelley Moore Capito and

Lisa Murkowski said they oppose immediate repeal, perhaps, finally, Republicans and Democrats can snap on their wizard hats and cobble something workable together. After all, it’s the only thing they haven’t tried yet.