I realize it's been quite a while since I taught - or was in school myself - but I'm distressed…
Morning Headlines 3/27/17
Heritage Foundation Alum Critical of Transgender Rights to Lead HHS Civil Rights Office
Former Heritage Foundation director Roger Severino is appointed as as director of HHS’s Office for Civil Rights.
Ryancare Failed Because Paul Ryan Is Still Learning How To Govern
Commenting on the GOP’s failed attempt to pass the AHCA, House Speaker Paul Ryan explains “We were a 10-year opposition party, where being against things was easy to do. You just had to be against it. Now, in three months’ time, we tried to go to a governing party where we actually had to get 216 people to agree with each other on how we do things.”
HHS inspector general is investigating pullback on HealthCare.gov ads
The HHS OIG is investigating the administration’s decision to suspend HealthCare.gov ads before the end of the 2017 enrollment period.
Regional West chooses new electronic health record provider
Regional West Health Services (NE) announces that it will implement Cerner across its hospital and outpatient clinics.
At least House Speaker Paul Ryan is honest about the situation the Republicans find themselves in regarding the AHCA. Donald Trump is, shall we politely say, less than taking ownership of his mistakes.
The Forbes article is good, but it still fails to directly address the underlying issues. The ACA was front and center for 8 years! The Republicans threw themselves at the issue with the tenacity of a dog firmly on a leash, trying to get at a cat. How many repeal bills did the Repubs introduce? 40? 50?
Yet for all of that the Repubs utterly failed to construct a meaningful alternative. That’s the business of a party, to build support for policy. You can explain the situation all you want (and Forbes tries, ad nauseum) but it all ends in the same place.
If you ask me the Repubs got lazy. They spent all their time being against the ACA but when asked what they were for, all they had was Repeal and Replace. Except when it was Repeal or Replace. That’s lazy sloganeering and they couldn’t even get the slogan right.
A smart move when they got into power was to understand they had no constructive policy on the issue and backburner the ACA. Then spend the time to build a policy offering and only submit it when ready. Did they do that? No.