Another day, another failed health care plan.
Republican U.S. senators, in the wee hours of Friday morning, failed to pass what was termed a “skinny” health care proposal in the party’s effort to repeal and replace the 2010 Democrat-contrived Affordable Care Act (ACA).
We would like to say this vote would convince Republicans and Democrats it’s time to work together on an entirely new health care bill. Sadly, indications from both sides are that won’t be the case.
By midday Friday, Republicans already were talking about new plans that might garner the 51 votes needed to send a bill to a Senate-House conference committee. The few Democrats who were willing to say there was an iota of a problem with the ACA suggested Republicans work together with them to make needed changes in what’s come to be called Obamacare.
That, of course, ignored the fact Americans voted to give Republicans a majority in the House in 2010, the Senate in 2014 and the presidency in 2016, predicated at least partly on their opposition to the passage of the ACA. Tinkering at the margins of a broken and ill-conceived plan won’t fix it.