Could Trump and the Democrats make ‘ObamaCare Lite’ any lighter?

A fear for many in the GOP’s “Never Trump” movement during the presidential campaign was that a President Trump would be more interested in making grand deals with Democrats than in upholding conservative principles.

Within days of the election, if not hours, it seemed crystal clear it was no RINO (Republican in name only) who would be sitting in the Oval Office. As noted by no less than Ronald Reagan’s Education secretary, William Bennett, Trump’s Cabinet nominations were more conservative than the Gipper’s. Naming Neil Gorsuch to the late Antonin Scalia’s Supreme Court seat seemed to be absolute confirmation: apart from some populistic protectionism that was really more anti-multilateralist than anti-free trade, the Trump presidency was on track to becoming the most conservative of the modern era.

{mosads}Right after Friday’s failure of a repeal-and-replace bill conservatives disparaged as ObamaCare Lite, however, the spectre of that other Donald was glimpsed. The president now believes he can “make a deal with the Democrats and have one unified deal.” He hastened to add that “they will come to us; we won’t have to come to them” because it will happen “after ObamaCare explodes” over the coming months. It certainly sounds like Trump will have Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi eating out of his hand.

White House chief of staff Reince Priebus told Fox News Sunday that if House Republicans won’t give Trump what he wants on health care, “then we need to work with moderate Democrats.” Priebus added: “I think it’s more or less a warning shot that we’re willing to talk to anyone; we always have been.” Now more than ever, he argued, “it’s time for both parties to come together and get to real reforms in this country” on health care, taxes, infrastructure spending and other issues.”

Of course, neither Democrat leader will ever help dismantle the signature enactment of their party’s last president; it will be rank-and-file members seeking to save their political skins in the 2018 elections who will reach out to the other side of the aisle. Even so, won’t the input of Democrat congressmen and senators necessarily mean an ObamaCare replacement containing more liberal elements – an ObamaCare Ultra Lite, as it were? Is that what the President means when he says, “the Democrats will come to us and say, look, let’s get together and get a great healthcare bill or plan that’s really great for the people of our country. And I think that’s going to happen”? Or when he says, “both parties can get together and do real healthcare. That’s the best thing”?

Actually, the odds are against it. In spite of his longtime reputation as self-serving cynic, it has been fascinating to see Donald Trump as president exhibit a loyalty to conservatism and conservative Republican members of Congress rivaling and perhaps exceeding that of Reagan. When asked on Friday after the ObamaCare vote was cancelled if he felt “betrayed by the House Freedom Caucus,” Trump replied, “No, I’m not betrayed. They’re friends of mine.”

Only “some of the Democrats,” on the other hand, are “good people,” according to Trump, and he is unwilling to “reach out to the Democrats now,” rather than later when ObamaCare becomes so poisonous that their congressional seats are directly threatened.

The real lesson of Friday’s body blow is one that has been taught yet unlearned again and again over many years: Congress’s liberal-to-moderate Republicans continually threaten the party’s agenda, and reining them in is a long-overdue imperative. Skillfully using carrots and sticks, Democrats seldom tolerate defections on major pieces of legislation, and it doesn’t matter how much the most moderate members of their caucus squawk about it; it’s time for Republicans to start whipping their own renegades into line with a similar force and focus.

Instead of the Freedom Caucus being blamed as the spoiler of Friday’s pre-empted vote, it should be recognized as the conservative conscience of the GOP, emmisaries of the Tea Party movement that was the original populist revolt against President Obama, a movement Trump built on in his unlikely voyage to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (and, arguably, without which he could not have gotten there). Their free-market approach to repeal-and-replace should have been the starting point in designing a replacement to ObamaCare.

There has been much talk of which party “owns” the healthcare system and thus takes the blame from the public for its dysfunctions. How absurd it will be if repeal-and-replace ends up retaining all too many of ObamaCare’s defects, failing to unleash the benefits of the free market for health care consumers, gets opposed by Freedom Caucus members as a consequence, yet all Republicans get blamed when what gets enacted, “real healthcare,” disappoints the American people.

Worse still, when such a manifestation of “TrumpCare,” sure to be wrongly labeled as a free-market system, is declared a failure, the inevitable next move will be a drive toward full single-payer, Euro-style socialism. This is the dire hazard of practicing the art of the deal with Democrats.

Thomas McArdle (@Macardghail) was a White House speechwriter for President George W. Bush and a senior writer for Investor’s Business Daily. He is the humorist for the new app “ElectionWarz.”

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