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The failure of the House Republicans to pass the Ryan-Trump Healthcare bill is disgusting. After eight years of winning elections by inveighing against ObamaCare, they finally get the chance to repeal it and replace it with a good bill and they turn up their noses.
The rejected bill would have cut premiums dramatically, eliminated the requirement to buy insurance, and provided scaled back subsidies to cover reduced premium costs.
The Freedom Caucus did a good job initially in insisting that the bill be altered to eliminate the services required to be covered by ObamaCare policies. But then it failed to embrace the result.
Why? Its members were too frightened of a political backlash and were too scared to take a real stand and be for something.
They are a disgrace.
Trump is quite right on two counts:
1. ObamaCare is failing and won't last for another year or two. Insurers are pulling out, people are not signing up, the risk pool is getting worse, premiums will be rising and the program won't exist in one to two years. Then, both parties will be forced to move for a replacement.
2. Endless haggling was not the way to handle this House. Only by taking the firm stand he did does he keep credibility and the ability to pass his agenda.
Speaker Paul Ryan did a good job in crafting the bill and trying to hold this irresponsible, timid party together.
I hope he and the caucus move to strip Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ) of his chairmanship of the all-powerful House Appropriations Committee.
A member of the House leadership cannot be tolerated in such a position of power if he is going to throw the party's agenda overboard. He needs to go.
And so do the rest of them who would have voted no.
Dick Morris, who served as adviser to former Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and former President Clinton, is the author of 16 books, including his latest, Screwed and Here Come the Black Helicopters.