One plan to save healthcare would carry the price tag of throwing Obama under the bus.
Hopefully, he’d accept that price for the benefit.
As we know, on the one hand Republicans are one vote short of devastating healthcare, cutting hundreds of billions in taxes for the rich and taking that amount out of healthcare for the public.
On the other, the solution we’d like is single payer, but we’re nowhere close to getting that with this Republican Congress and any time in the foreseeable future.
Here’s the plan.
We know the ACA can be improved and strengthened. Not the way Republicans want to in their phony harms to it, but actually improve it. Unfortunately, we can’t improve it by making Medicare expansion mandatory, because the Republican Supreme Court has blocked that, but we can do all kinds of other things, such as putting the insurer subsidies into the law, doing a lot more on drug prices, and more.
Democrats identify a lot of real improvements as a package. Then they go to trump and tell him that they’ll say he was right, Obamacare was broken, and would fail the way things are going (if Republicans block subsidies for the insurers and otherwise sabotage it). Tell him they’ll give him credit for doing what he said he would all along, save Obamacare for the people, if he’ll support the package. He’ll get the credit and to be the hero and have Democrats agreeing with him that Obama’s plan was flawed and trump saved the day.
This is what politics is — trading. Compromising. Do we want healthcare or do we want political points?
It’s just an idea, but just maybe trump would go for it — giving him a win instead of the failure he has. And if he did, likely enough Republicans would dig themselves out of their mess to pass it.