We begin today's roundup with The New York Times and its editorial on the failure of the Trumpcare bill:
Republican legislative leaders are in a bind. While they appear to have failed for now in their goal of destroying the Affordable Care Act, their eagerness to shower tax breaks on the wealthy at the expense of health coverage for millions of Americans has crimped their ability to pass other fiscal legislation.
This is not a lament. It’s just as well that they haven’t done anything big, given their goals. But it is a stunning demonstration of incompetence that, with control of the House, the Senate and the White House for six months, Republicans have not only failed to enact any major bills but have also created a legislative logjam that is bound to get worse. [...]
After years spent as obstructionists, obstruction seems to be all they know. Now they’re obstructing themselves, a good thing since it may limit their ability to do harm.
Matt Lewis at The Daily Beast highlights Trump’s six months of "winning”:
If we were to judge Trump on a legislative agenda, he would (at best) receive an “incomplete.” Early on, there was much talk about a robust agenda, including health care reform, tax reform, and an infrastructure bill. But the first six months saw no major legislation signed into law.
It took until May for the House to pass a bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, and after the events of Monday night, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says the Senate will vote only to repeal—not yet replace—Obamacare.
Having gotten bogged down in trying to overhaul one-sixth of the U.S. economy (a pursuit I compare to a land invasion in Asia), it goes without saying that tax reform and infrastructure are delayed—and imperiled.
Paul Waldman at The Week, meanwhile, tackles Republican nostalgia for a pre-Obamacare world:
To begin with, the perfect wisdom of the free market had somehow left 50 million Americans with no coverage at all — and the GOP health plan would get us back near that number. Then let's consider pre-existing conditions. Maybe your family has some of them; mine does. Nothing life-threatening — an old injury here, a bothersome condition there — but in the past it was enough to get us denied coverage on the individual market. If it didn't happen to you, it probably happened to someone you know. The ACA outlawed those denials, and while most Republicans claim they want to keep those protections in place, the bill the Senate is considering would eviscerate them. A provision written by Ted Cruz that was recently added to the bill would allow insurers to offer bare-bones plans that provide little if any real coverage, as long as they also offered a plan that was compliant with the ACA's mandate that insurance cover "essential health benefits" like hospitalization, emergency care, preventive care, and prescription medications. Health-care experts warn that it would create a two-tier system in which young and healthy people buy the cheap coverage and those who are sicker and older buy the more comprehensive coverage, quickly leading to a "death spiral" of skyrocketing premiums in the latter.