Donald Trump thinks of himself as a master political strategist, the consummate dealmaker, the toughest guy on the block.
Of course, he is none of that.
He is the president of the United States, who also keeps changing strategies, his mind, his goals. He confuses me to no end.
Now he says he wants Congress to withhold plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act until after the 2020 presidential election. This comes after he declared — with the most conviction he could muster — that he wanted it done now. He didn’t have a replacement plan, but he damn sure did promise that the Republican Party would become the “party of health care.” Yep. That’s what he said.
How will that occur? That’s a mystery. To Trump. To congressional Republicans. To the White House staff. To the Department of Health and Human Services.
The strategy du jour is to wait until after the election next year. Trump says the GOP will retake the House of Representatives, strengthen its control of the Senate and, let’s not forget, re-elect him as POTUS.
There you have it. Trump predicts that the GOP will regain total control of two of three co-equal government branches.
But wait! They had that control before. They couldn’t repeal the ACA, let alone come up with a suitable replacement. Why do you suppose that happened?
I think it’s because the ACA has become more popular with Americans, the folks who are the actual “bosses.” It ain’t Congress and it certainly isn’t the White House.
Donald Trump doesn’t know what he’s doing.
The ACA was a good idea that was poorly executed…….. of course a Congress who does not fully understand health insurance pushed it through. It needs a complete reworking from Ground Zero. Right now it’s better than nothing. You don’t repeal a program until you’ve got a functional replacement. You study the current program and see what is working and what is not working and what could be improved and then you make the changes and then study those changes for unforeseen errors and fix them. Do you want to buy and drive a brand new car that was designed and built by a bunch of amateurs with no engineering or mechanical back ground and take it totally untested, out on Central Expressway and LBJ during the rush hours?