THE House Republicans’ health-care plan, the American Health Care Act, may, if enacted, leave 24m Americans without coverage, in the judgment of the Congressional Budget Office. But for those determined to shrink the government, that may not be enough. Americans for Prosperity, an influential campaign group, calls it Obamacare 2.0; FreedomWorks, an anti-tax group, Obamacare-lite. The Republican Study Committee, which consists of 170 House Republicans, describes it as “a Republican welfare entitlement”. When Obamacare became law, Democrats crowed that it would prove impossible to take health insurance away from people once they had it. For those on the drown-the-government wing of the Republican Party, the fight over repealing the law is an existence-threatening event. If a Republican president with majorities in both houses of Congress cannot succeed in taking away an entitlement, then they might as well give up.
Viewed from the rest of the world, this debate has an unreal quality. America is alone among rich countries in not arranging for its government to provide some form of health care for all its people. When Obamacare became law in 2010,...Continue reading
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