In trying desperately to give Donald Trump a "win" a few weeks back, House Republicans hastily threw together an awful bill as a first step to repealing the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. The original bill was bad enough for those who would be hurt by it, but it wasn't bad enough for Republicans.
So along came GOP Rep. and former insurance executive Tom MacArthur who had an idea to get it across the finish line: Allow insurance companies to return to the good old days when they could charge people with pre-existing conditions whatever they saw fit. The rest, as they say, is history. Problem solved! Not only would millions lose their health insurance, but those with pre-existing conditions would be priced out of the market. Republicans and Trump were so happy they celebrated passage of the bill in The Rose Garden at the White House.
In fact, Trump was so happy about advancing his path to ending health care for millions that he held a fundraiser for MacArthur at his Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster. (Hello again old friend the Emoluments Clause!) The event was closed to the press, because natch, but according to Politico, Trump had nothing but praise for MacArthur and his dirty work:
...MacArthur campaign strategist Chris Russell said Trump's remarks focused on MacArthur's role in revamping the House GOP's Obamacare replacement bill.
"[Trump] talked about the health care fight," Russell said. "[He was] very complimentary of Tom and his efforts on health care and, moving forward, sees him as a leader in Washington."
Trump sees him as a leader! I guess so, given Trump raised $800,000 for MacArthur.
Then an interesting thing happened: Public outrage over the egregious bill Republicans, thanks to MacArthur, passed.
Trump's approval ratings started tanking even more, and if there's one thing we know about Trump, it's that he loves him some polls! But he only loves the ones that say how great he's viewed by the public, and he hasn't seen any of those since he won the election. The public and the media were trashing him along with the bill. That meant someone or something was going under the Trump bus. So in this case, it was the House Republicans and their health care bill:
President Trump on Tuesday bluntly derided a House attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act as “mean,” and in doing so, injected himself in a brewing Senate battle that his fellow Republicans had prayed he would avoid.
At a White House lunch with more than a dozen Republican senators, Mr. Trump alerted his guests that a bill passed by the House this spring — one he lauded last month in the Rose Garden as a “great plan” that was “very, very incredibly well-crafted” — was now “mean.”
He also informed the lawmakers, who represented politically diverse views from across the Republican spectrum, that he expected the Senate to come up with something more generous, according to four congressional aides who were briefed on the discussion and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
As anyone who's been paying attention knows, the Senate bill Trump spoke of is apparently going to be so "great" that no one is allowed to see it until it goes up for a vote. Republicans are hiding it and working behind closed doors in the hopes that they won't meet the same public outrage until it's too late. Unfortunately that hasn't worked out very well for them.
One thing we can be pretty sure of is that whatever the Senate is throwing together won't be much better than the House version, according to bits that have leaked out here and there. If their version was great as Trump claims, they wouldn't be hiding it.
So one has to wonder if MacArthur will still earn Trump's praise in the future, or if he'll become just another poster boy for Trump's failures when he pokes his head out of the White House or takes to Twitter looking for someone to blame.
I suppose MacArthur should feel lucky in one sense. He managed to become someone who made some money at a private Trump property that didn't go directly into Trump's pocket.
Unfortunately the rest of us may still be stuck with the real bill if Republicans manage to repeal the ACA.
But it sure would be great to find a Democrat willing to jump in the race against MacArthur.
In the meantime, call your Senators before it's too late.
