The future of Obamacare and the odds of the Republican-drafted American Health Care Act passing in some form have been the dominant political story for the last week and a half now. The compressed debate and the fact that the new law is meant to do away with Obamacare have combined to capture my attention and interest in a way that the year-long-plus debate over the Affordable Care Act never quite did; call this my own personal silver lining in an otherwise ugly situation, in which the health care fate of literally millions of Americans hangs in the balance.
The movement of the political discourse into a variety of detailed questions around the provision of health care raises a very important caveat about what has seemed to be Donald Trump's ability to dominate the political scene. In the realm of broad strokes and sucker punch tweets, Donald Trump can act like a king; but in the nitty gritty world of legislation, he's just one of the guys (and apparently not very competent). No amount of huffing and puffing by the commander in chief can fully distract people from the very personal way in which health care affects them, and the literal life and death importance of how this legislation plays out. Some people have made the case for "normalizing" Donald Trump by making sure to engage him on just this everyday political playing field, and I have to admit that we have some early evidence that they may be on to something.
Over at the New Republic, Brian Beutler has been knocking out a series of insightful pieces that combine analysis of the Republican legislation with the deeper history of Obamacare and how the Republicans have come to be in such a confounding and perilous pass. This article from a couple days ago directly and indirectly hits on some larger point that few are focusing on in the heat of the moment. Beutler dares to extrapolate from the current Republican rush to implement their own health care bill, and concludes that in jamming through a flawed bill at breakneck speed, they are opening a political space for Democrats to act with similar speed on healthcare when they return to power.
The idea that the Democrats will return to power, hopefully sooner rather than later, is in the first place an incredibly inspiriting one; yet, absent a (quite possible but less likely than not) catastrophic turn of events that cements Trump and the Republicans' hold on government still further, Democrats will in all likelihood have their turn again. If nothing else, the Republicans' attempts to do away with a flawed but functioning, and certainly salvageable, health care law, in a way that highlights the trade-off between health care for millions and tax cuts for a rich, precious few, should serve to clarify the healthcare debate going forward. The Republican Party can try to wish it away as much as they want, but 20 million Americans have health care because of Obamacare, which is success by even the most basic measures. More than this — as Beutler points out, the Democrats now have open to them a pathway to implementing their preferred health care approach once they are back in the majority (particularly if the Republicans fail to pass any legislation), including de facto universal coverage.
Although we are clearly playing defense at the moment, it is not too soon for progressives to begin articulating an alternative vision of health care for all as an answer to the cruelty and incoherence of Republican attempts to roll back the Affordable Care Act. And health care is a microcosm (though sort of a macro as far as microcosms go!) of the larger political challenge: articulating a durable agenda that speaks to the very palpable desire across the country for real solutions to pressing problems, from the economic plight of the working class to rolling back climate change.
Offering hope rather than fear has always been the likelier road to success in American politics; Donald Trump may be feeding off and fueling the energies of a rancid, zero-sum, white nationalistic movement that is deeply rooted in our undemocratic economic arrangements, but it will sooner or later put him at a great disadvantage when faced with a reality-based, optimistic vision for economic fairness and respect and equality for all.