XPost: alt.tv.pol-incorrect, alt.politics.usa, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh

By John Fund — July 30, 2017

In 2008, presidential candidate John McCain bravely proposed a
health-care reform that Fortune magazine said was a giant step
toward “laissez faire liberty” in health care. He wanted to empower
consumers to find the best health care and even end the tax break
for employer-sponsored plans.

In 2015, McCain joined all but one other GOP senator in voting to
repeal Obamacare. The next year he ran an ad in his primary campaign
against a Tea Party Republican claiming he was “leading the fight to
stop Obamacare.” That ad helped him win 51 percent of the primary
vote.

Just this year, McCain introduced a bill to “fully” repeal Obamacare
and replace it with a “free-market approach that strengthens the
quality and accessibility of care.”

Then, last Friday, McCain faced a choice on the Senate floor. He
could vote with all but two of his GOP colleagues for “a skinny
repeal” bill and get to a conference committee, where negotiators
from the House and Senate could devise a bill that might pass both
chambers. Or he could effectively leave Obamacare in place, dooming
any realistic effort at curbing it given the uniform Democratic
opposition to any real reform.

McCain sided with the status quo, killing the “skinny repeal.”
Journalists rushed to gush over his vote, cast only a few days after
a surgery to remove a dangerous brain tumor. The New Yorker’s take
was typical: “Throughout his political life, John McCain has for
many reasons enjoyed bipartisan respect and even reverence: his
independence of mind (usually), his candor (usually), his decency,
his love of country.”

McCain’s stated reason for killing reform was that the bill in front
of him “fell short of our promise to repeal and replace Obamacare
with meaningful reform.” True enough, but this is a perfect example
of letting the perfect be the enemy of the better.

Obamacare is a disaster that, left untouched, will be saved only by
a massive taxpayer bailout of insurance companies. Premiums on
Obamacare exchanges have gone up by double digits annually ever
since their formation in 2013. Out-of-pocket expenses — including
copays and deductibles — rose 40 percent, to $2,649 per person on
average, between 2011 and 2014. Hundreds of counties across the
country are likely to have no health insurers offering plans on
their local exchanges next year.

Far from being a modern-day “profile in courage,” McCain’s vote
against advancing Obamacare reform represents a complete reversal of
the position he won his Senate election with last year. John Merline
of Investor’s Business Daily notes that “In the private sector,
promising one thing and delivering the other could be referred to as
‘deceptive trade practice.’ For some members of Congress, it’s just
another day at the office.”

Like every American, I wish John McCain the best in his battle
against a brain tumor. But in what may prove to be one of the most
important votes he has cast in his 35 years in Congress, he chose to
operate like the standard-issue politicians he likes to rail
against.


--
Dems & the media want Trump to be more like Obama, but then he'd
have to audit liberals & wire tap reporters' phones.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)