Here's the thing about Donald Trump. You don't know what in the hell he's going to do. You can be sure it's going to be horribly destructive 95 percent of the time, but when he's being destructive to Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell's dream, well, they deserve it.
In his first interview since his election earlier this week, Mr. Trump said one priority was moving “quickly” on the president’s signature health initiative, which he argued has become so unworkable and expensive that “you can’t use it.”
Yet, Mr. Trump also showed a willingness to preserve at least two provisions of the health law after the president asked him to reconsider repealing it during their meeting at the White House on Thursday.
Mr. Trump said he favors keeping the prohibition against insurers denying coverage because of patients’ existing conditions, and a provision that allows parents to provide years of additional coverage for children on their insurance policies. […]
On health care, Mr. Trump said a big reason for his shift from his call for an all-out repeal was that Thursday meeting at the White House with the president, who, he said, suggested areas of the Affordable Care Act to preserve. “I told him I will look at his suggestions, and out of respect, I will do that,” Mr. Trump said in his Trump Tower office.
“Either Obamacare will be amended, or repealed and replaced,” Mr. Trump said.
So maybe the reports from "senior" GOP congressional aides earlier today that some "reforms" of Obamacare were just as likely as a repeal of the law wasn't total smoke-blowing. But the same issues I outlined in that piece remain: you can't force insurance companies to take all comers—even the really expensive ones with pre-existing conditions—if they aren't getting paying customers to make up for it. Without the individual mandate and the subsidies that make that affordable, they don't have those patients. And they will raise hell over that suggestion.
As will the House maniacs who's entire reason for living has been taking health insurance away from people. Now that their second reason for living—being able to impeach Hillary Clinton—has been taken off the table, they need something. And it's not just House maniacs. Here's Sen. David Purdue (R-GA):
"If we have the majority, they don't need to compromise, we don't need to compromise on one thing, that's Obamacare,"the Georgia senator said on Trending Today USA with Rusty Humphries Wednesday. "We repealed Obamacare this year without the Democrats. We can do it again early next year and it will become law—we will repeal it from law, because we'll have a president that won't veto it."
Pop that popcorn, and sign up for Obamacare now, if you need it. It'll make it that much harder for them to repeal it.