Unhealthy Thoughts

I have no idea if the GOP will be able to pass their "health care" bill. It still seems dicey in the Senate which can't have as few as three defections, and then they have to reconcile the two bills with the even-more partisan House, which has an especially-conservative bill.  

But after the two "wins" yesterday in special elections, I suspect Republicans will now feel emboldened that they still have this mandate with the country behind them and so will continue to play Thelma & Louise and drive cheeringly off the cliff.

(Let's quickly recap.  Forget that Trump lost the popular vote by three million, though that's the starting point.  The more pressing realities are two-fold.  First, that the House "health care" bill only has a 17% approval.  And second, as good as it is to "win" two congressional elections, a) both were in incredibly safe Republican districts which remarkably lost TWENTY POINTS in each, in just a mere seven months, and b) even had the Democrats won both, the already-big GOP House majority would have bee completely safe.  So, celebrating these wins as importantly meaningful and continuing to drive recklessly because all's well is living in a Fool's Paradise, with a cliff up ahead.)

But lets say they do pass a bill, and their representatives all cheer the passage with another group hug and photo at the White House, high-fiving one another in joyous, giddy celebration.  The reality, however, that they will then have to face is two-fold:  The first is that what the public knows of the Republican plan is so problematic that it has only a monumentally horrific 17% approval.  And secondly, the very next day after it becomes law, Republicans will immediately have to live with it as THEIR agenda. Giving literal meaning to the phrase, "The law of unintended consequences."

The thing is, even if it doesn't pass, Republicans still have to live with this.  This is a bill that just a paltry 17% of Americans like -- and whether or not it passes, the GOP will have to defend it.  Will have to explain to the public why they thought something so deeply disliked was a good thing.

And keep in mind, too, that that meager 17% approval comes before people are affected by it and have their health care coverage cut or lost entirely.  And if that overlaps with any of the 17% who today are all for the law (many, perhaps, merely because it was "Obamacare," Obama's law...) -- something that seems likely -- even that horribly low number could drop.

As the phrase goes:  Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.