Since the roll-out of the new replacement for Obamacare, heretofore referred to as Republicare, it has been hard to find a pro-replacement voice in the din of dissent coming from both sides of the aisle.
Despite being constructed by the far-right, the new healthcare bill is being opposed by even the most ardent and partisan conservative groups. This includes Heritage Action, Club for Growth, and other Koch-backed organizations who have issued statements standing against the new healthcare plan.
It appears that the Obamacare replacement signals the first real division in the as-yet unified right as conservative groups disagree with the elected branches. Might this only be the first of many deep disagreements in a party seeming intent on playing nice with one another?
While Democrats oppose the bill for killing some of the most vital aspects of the ACA, Republicans are angry that Paul Ryan and others did not go far enough to dismantle Obamacare.
Right Wing organization Heritage Action said that the new healthcare proposal did not go nearly far enough to dismantle the “flawed progressive premise of Obamacare.” Meanwhile, the Club for Growth referred to the healthcare plan as “Ryancare,” attempting to pin the blame on the Speaker of the House, and said that the AHCA was a “warmed-over substitute for government-run health care.” Americans for Prosperity, too, bemoaned the short goals of the AHCA, saying that it does not adequately repeal all mandates and regulations imposed by the ACA.
Republicans knew that once they got down to brass tacks, repealing and replacing Obamacare was going to be a bipartisan nightmare. After all, now that Americans have been given freedom from lifetime healthcare caps and cannot be dropped from their insurance due to preexisting conditions, those are not benefits they will ever be willing to give up. Republicans also know, much to their terror, that one cannot impose these benefits while not also imposing a mandate, the boogeyman that Republicans have spent years demonizing.
No matter what they do, Republicans will lose this healthcare fight – and it’s a loss of their own doing.
