C’mon, guys! How complicated could healthcare repeal/replacement possibly be? Republicans have been promising it for years on end, and finally one of their duped voters is demanding they make good on it, immediately: popular vote loser Donald Trump.
Mr. Trump, who seemed unclear about the timing of already scheduled votes in Congress this week, demanded a repeal vote “probably some time next week,” and said “the replace will be very quickly or simultaneously, very shortly thereafter.”
That demand is very likely impossible. Republicans in Congress are nowhere close to agreement on a major health bill that would replace President Obama’s signature domestic achievement. A number of Republicans in the House and Senate have said publicly that they wanted to hold off on voting to eviscerate the health law until a replacement measure could be negotiated.
But Mr. Trump said there was no cause for delay. And he said he would not accept a delay of more than a few weeks before a replacement plan was voted on. “Long to me would be weeks,” he said. “It won’t be repeal and then two years later go in with another plan.” That directly contradicts House Speaker Paul D. Ryan’s plans.
Oops! Wow, all they need to do is tear down a law that was originally 2,700 pages long and now includes some 20,000-30,000 pages of regulations to boot. What have these fools been doing for seven years? They promised. It's go time!
It's pretty beautiful, actually. Trump—a simultaneous victim of GOP propaganda and his total ignorance about how Congress works—is asking Republican lawmakers to do the impossible.
Anyone got any bets as to who's going to break it to him that it's either one or the other: repeal now without a replacement or delay the vote until a replacement can be devised?
There’s nothing quite like trying to manage the expectations of a spoiled billionaire with no grounding in reality. Good luck, GOP!