Republicans Search for Someone to Blame for Trumpcare
By Margaret Hartmann
March 15, 2017
5:40 a.m.
The Congressional Budget Office’s estimate that 24 million people will lose health coverage by 2026 under the Republican health-care plan has kicked off a new phase in the effort to repeal and replace Obamacare: the hunt for a scapegoat. Vice-President Mike Pence and Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price spent Tuesday on Capitol Hill trying to rally support for the health-care bill, but more and more Republicans are coming out against the current version of the legislation — and pointing fingers at each other.
The most obvious target is the man behind the bill, which fails to achieve the Republicans’ contradictory goals for the health-care system. Breitbart’s escalating attacks on House Speaker Paul Ryan have added fuel to suspicions that chief strategist Steve Bannon hasn’t given up on his goal of ending Ryan’s career.
But as the Washington Post notes, Breitbart is far from the only conservative outlet bashing “Ryancare.” Newsmax chief executive Christopher Ruddy even published a piece urging President Trump to abandon the current bill on Tuesday (though he went with the less catchy moniker “Ryan Plan II”).
“Trump figures things out pretty quickly, and I think he’s figuring out this situation, how the House Republicans did him a disservice,” said Ruddy, a longtime friend of Trump’s. “President Trump is a big-picture, pragmatic Republican, and unfortunately the Ryan Republican plan doesn’t capture his worldview.”
more
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/03/republicans-search-for-someone-to-blame-for-trumpcare.html
