Republicans, Democrats, and the Helath Care Debacle

Its been a bad week for the Republicans. Their attempts to repeal the ACA (AKA Obamacare) went down to ignominious failure. In part, the Republicans failed due to a lack of party discipline as a consequence of unrelenting acrimonious squabbling amongst themselves.

The Republicans have failed to govern.  They had seven years to formulate the repeal of the ACA and they "blew it". One would have thought, given their seven year lead time, that the Republicans would have had their act together. Guess not. Criticism of the Republican efforts is justified.

But, there is another view point to the health care debacle. Like the Republicans, the Democrats also had seven years to propose a fix to the ACA. They have failed to do so.

Both the media and the Republicans have been silent on raising the issue that the Democrats have avoided, over seven years, to propose legislative fixes to the ACA. Surprising since this would provide the Republicans with the opportunity to shift blame for the health care debacle to the Democrats.

The Democrats and the media have been mocking the Republicans for their inability to put forward a coherent plan to repeal the ACA. While these derisions of Republicans by the Democrats may seem appropriate they actually point to a major difference between how the Republicans and Democrats approach governance.

From the perspective of a democratic process, the squabbling of the Republicans is actually a good thing. They are openly discussing in a public forum how to get a piece of legislation passed. Unfortunately it did not turn out well.

From the perspective of a democratic process, the Democrats are an autocratic organization. No dissension is allowed. (Three Republican Senators cited their conscience as the reason not to go along with the rest of the party, but not one Democrat was willing to break with the party line even-though the ACA is a failing abomination.)  Essentially each Democratic Congressperson seems to be a mindless robot implementing the dictates of the party leadership. That is not good, in terms of the democratic process and resulted in the passage of the abomination known as the ACA back in 2010.

The health care issue is not dead, but note the dynamics. The Democrats ridicule the Republican efforts but never actually suggest their own solution. The reason is obvious, dirty politics by the Democrats. The Democrats know that the Republicans have failed so they (Democrats) will sit back and do nothing hoping that the Republicans will come crawling to them. The Democrats have no interest in compromising with the Republicans, even if that means letting their prized piece of legislation (the ACA) fail. The Democrats are deplorable.