Republican Representatives Who Blocked the American Health Care Act Miscalculated Badly
Republican obstructionists blocking the American Health Care Act was a HUGE mistake with which Obama, Schumer, Pelosi and other single-payer proponents must be delighted.
Six years before becoming President of the United States, then Illinois State Senator, Barack Obama looked forward to a federal single-payer health plan.
At an AFL-CIO Civil, Human and Women's Rights Conference, he said:
"I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health care program. I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14 percent of its gross national product on health care, cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody. And that's what Jim is talking about when he says everybody in, nobody out. A single-payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. That's what I’d like to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we've got to take back the White House, we've got to take back the Senate, and we've got to take back the House" (www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/jul/16/barack-obama/obama-statements-single-payer-have-changed-bit/).
Watch and listen at www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpAyan1fXCE.
Democrats eventually took back the Senate, the House of Representatives and the White House.
The result was enactment of the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, in 2010.
It was a major step toward single-payer.
Republicans proceeded to back the Senate, the House of Representatives and the White House, promising to repeal and replace Obamacare, only to be blocked last Friday by Republicans who let the perfect become the enemy of the good.
Last Friday the House of Representatives voted on whether to approve the American Health Care Act or to keep Obamacare as the law of the land.
Those were the options.
Not a single Democrat abandoned the signature legislative "accomplishment" of former President Obama.
The vast majority of Republican Representatives supported their Speaker, Paul Ryan, and President Trump.
But 25 to 35 Republicans were prepared to vote down the Affordable Healthcare Act, so there was no vote.
The Affordable Care Act would have blocked funding Planned Parenthood for a year, but supposedly ardent pro-life Republicans were not going to vote yes on the Affordable Care Act, even though that would mean voting no on Planned Parenthood.
Former President Obama and Planned Parenthood should be grateful to them.
So should advocates of a single-payer plan.
The chance to move further away from single-payer was wasted by Republicans whose hope for perfection blinded them to the fact that the Affordable Care Act would have been much better that Obamacare.
Obamacare remains the law of the land, even though it is imploding and will explode unless it is replaced or "fixed."
Betting on President Trump letting it explode is a bad bet, because he cares about the people who would suffer as a result and he will make the best deal he can.
Predictably, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi was giddy with joy because she had achieved Democrat unanimity and will be rewarded with relevancy when legislation finally is enacted to deal with the growing healthcare problems.
Democrat Senate Leader Chuck Schumer is thrilled too. He will be a major player in a grand bargain that could have been avoided if Republicans had been as united as Democrats were.
Will the Republican obstructionists be happier with that grand bargain than they would have been with the Republican bill they blocked?
Of course not.
Robert Watson-Watt, developed early warning radar in Britain to counter the rapid growth of the Luftwaffe, and propounded a "cult of the imperfect" from which those Republican obstructionists should learn.
Watson-Watt said: "Give them the third best to go on with; the second best comes too late, the best never comes."
Waiting for as perfect bill is like waiting for Godot.
The question that the obstructionist Republicans should have asked themselves in deciding how to vote should have been: "is this an improvement?"
Instead they asked themselves whether it satisfied them.
Republican obstructionists blocking the American Health Care Act was a HUGE mistake with which Obama, Schumer, Pelosi and other single-payer proponents must be delighted.
Michael J. Gaynor has been practicing law in New York since 1973. A former partner at Fulton, Duncombe & Rowe and Gaynor & Bass, he is a solo practitioner admitted to practice in New York state and federal courts and an Association of the Bar of the City of New York member.
Gaynor graduated magna cum laude, with Honors in Social Science, from Hofstra University's New College, and received his J.D. degree from St. John's Law School, where he won the American Jurisprudence Award in Evidence and served as an editor of the Law Review and the St. Thomas More Institute for Legal Research. He wrote on the Pentagon Papers case for the Review and obscenity law for The Catholic Lawyer and edited the Law Review's commentary on significant developments in New York law.
The day after graduating, Gaynor joined the Fulton firm, where he focused on litigation and corporate law. In 1997 Gaynor and Emily Bass formed Gaynor & Bass and then conducted a general legal practice, emphasizing litigation, and represented corporations, individuals and a New York City labor union. Notably, Gaynor & Bass prevailed in the Second Circuit in a seminal copyright infringement case, Tasini v. New York Times, against newspaper and magazine publishers and Lexis-Nexis. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed, 7 to 2, holding that the copyrights of freelance writers had been infringed when their work was put online without permission or compensation.
Gaynor currently contributes regularly to www.MichNews.com, www.RenewAmerica.com, www.WebCommentary.com, www.PostChronicle.com and www.therealitycheck.org and has contributed to many other websites. He has written extensively on political and religious issues, notably the Terry Schiavo case, the Duke "no rape" case, ACORN and canon law, and appeared as a guest on television and radio. He was acknowledged in Until Proven Innocent, by Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, and Culture of Corruption, by Michelle Malkin. He appeared on "Your World With Cavuto" to promote an eBay boycott that he initiated and "The World Over With Raymond Arroyo" (EWTN) to discuss the legal implications of the Schiavo case. On October 22, 2008, Gaynor was the first to report that The New York Times had killed an Obama/ACORN expose on which a Times reporter had been working with ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief.