I wonder what the political landscape would look like today if Trump and the Congressional Republicans just kept the promise they made over the past 8 years: repeal and replace Obamacare with something better that would cover more and cost less. They could have done that, there was nothing really stopping them from keeping their promise. At lease nothing external. I’m hearing a lot of commentary about how this face plant on healthcare really tarnished Mitch McConnell’s reputation as a great legislative tactician and strategist. I am convinced that had they even just repealed Obamacare screwed around with it a little and then simply re-introduced it with some little revisions here or there, they would have satisfied their base. After all the base is so partisan that as long as there were some changes, regardless of how inconsequential, they could sell it to the base pretty easily and the base would eat it up and claim that is was a great historic piece of legislation because they don’t care what is in it as much as who passes it.
Another option was to be honest with the public from the moment Obamacare became law and argue the principle that the federal government should not meddle with healthcare and that Obamacare is a prime example of that very principle. Instead they took a different tact, which in retrospect seems a little odd and shows the limitations of McConnell’s competency.
The tactic employed by McConnell and Congressional Republicans, was to attack, attack, and attack on the shortcomings of Obamacare and essentially attacking it from the left; they promised better quality, greater coverage, and lower costs. Those attacks had traction and Republicans ran on those attacks for the next eight years. Tactically it was effective and expedient. Strategically, however, it ultimately proved to be the doomsayer of Republican repeal and replace efforts.
So for eight years the Republicans chanted “repeal and replace”, passed numerous pieces of meaningless legislation to repeal, and identified additional attacks on Obamacare. They did not, however, make a serious effort to prepare the “replace” half of the equation. To be fair Senators Collins and Cassidy put together a serious plan that they were ready to introduce back in January and that was essentially sitting on the shelf when McConnell took it upon himself and a few select Senators to craft the Senate bill in complete secrecy. It also bears mentioning that when the House passed their bill, McConnell made the tactical decision to use budget reconciliation so that they didn’t need to bother with those pesky Democrats holding up any legislation. That is important because (1) Republicans are now saying that the Democrats refused to work with them and that it was a open process, (2) the reconciliation process constrained their options to just budget related aspects of Obamacare.
So for all of the tactical decisions that McConnell appears to have gotten right if you are concerned with expediency. But strategically, McConnell’s tactical decisions ultimately doomed any strategic goal of repeal and replace