Not only will Donald Trump’s replacement for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) be “a lot better” according to the billionaire’s campaign adviser, but it will be supported by members of both parties in Congress.
Whatever Trump would offer in terms of a national health care policy “must be bipartisan,” Sam Clovis, the national co-chair of the Trump campaign, told the New York Times last week.
Clovis’ claim echoes an oft-repeated criticism Republicans have made of Obamacare: It was approved without a single GOP vote in Congress. The multiple GOP efforts to repeal the PPACA have similarly failed to earn support from Democrats.
In the event that Trump one day occupies the Oval Office, it’s hardly even clear that many Republicans would support whatever he proposes to replace the PPACA. As has been painstakingly documented, many of Trump’s pronouncements on health care run directly counter to conventional GOP doctrine.
But because the prospect of a Trump presidency would so thoroughly upend conventional political wisdom — including polls that now suggest the GOP’s Congressional majority would be seriously threatened if the party nominates Trump — it is anybody’s guess how members of Congress would work with such a president.
The promise of bipartisanship reveals a key distinction between Trump and his chief rival for the nomination, Ted Cruz. Whereas the latter promises to vindicate conservative free-market ideology, Trump fashions himself a post-partisan figure, borrowing parts of both parties’ traditional ideologies and promising to win the support of Democrats by protecting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
And although Trump made arguably the most extreme anti-abortion comment by a major candidate in recent memory when he suggested women who obtain abortions should be punished if the procedure is outlawed, he has also deviated from the Republican party line on Planned Parenthood, saying the nonprofit has “helped millions of women” through its non-abortion medical services.
The unpredictability of Trump’s positions and his utter lack of commitment to the GOP, combined with his terrible polling numbers when matched against Hillary Clinton, explains why many leading Republicans are increasingly maneuvering to stop him from winning the party nomination.
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