“We’ll let Obamacare fail,” President Donald Trump declared after the U.S. Senate’s repeal-and-replace health care bill failed because not enough Republicans could stomach it.
To borrow a quote from Joseph Nye Welch, chief counsel for the U.S. Army during the Army-McCarthy hearings of 1954, “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?”
As a candidate, Trump ran on the popular promises to “drain the swamp,” end the Washington practice of putting political gamesmanship before the interests of America’s families and make Washington work for the forgotten man and women.
But as president, Trump is now putting the desire to claim a political win – any win – before the health and well-being of tens of millions of Americans.
Trump has long suggested that he would let Obamacare fail without a replacement plan if Senate Republicans couldn’t get behind one.
He seems to actually believe that if he manages to undermine the law sufficiently to create havoc in the markets that millions of Americans rely on to purchase affordable insurance, Democrats, who voted to create the Affordable Care Act, will “come to us” to replace it with something that would gut Medicaid, leave at least 20 million people uninsured and cause out-of-pocket costs to skyrocket for millions more.
“The only thing more reckless than the Senate health care bill is President Trump’s declaration that he wants to see the Affordable Care Act fail or ‘explode,’” said AFSCME Pres. Lee Saunders. “He has also refused to guarantee the payments that reduce out-of-pocket costs for low-income people buying ACA coverage. Sabotaging the health care system and putting politics over people’s lives is not what makes America great.”
Trump could learn from AFSCME members. The dedicated women and men who keep our communities healthy and make our streets cleaner and safer know that public service comes with the responsibility to help the people we serve. That’s what public service is about – not scoring political points at the expense of millions of families.