Opinion: What's at Stake for McConnell, Conservatives and the GOP

Opinion: What’s at Stake for McConnell, Conservatives and the GOP

Now or never for Republicans who want to repeal Obamacare

Posted Jun 26, 2017 5:04 AM
Jonathan Allen
@Jonathan Allen

Republican leaders have a once-in-a-lifetime shot to dismantle Medicaid, a costly entitlement program that provides health care for the poor and the disabled.

In what other scenario could Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell find themselves working with a president so totally focused on the optics of “winning” in the short term and so utterly unconcerned about the real-life and political ramifications of taking benefits away from his own voters?

The last Republican president, George W. Bush, actually expanded Medicare entitlements. President Ronald Reagan worked with a Democratic Congress to stabilize Social Security, and President Richard Nixon oversaw a massive increase in eligibility for Medicare.
Over the years, legislators and presidents have nipped, tucked and tweaked the entitlement programs, but no one has ever gotten so close to a fundamental reversal of their structure as congressional Republicans are now. That is, Republicans have campaigned on reining in spending but they haven’t really had the chance to take the “entitlement” out of the three major entitlement programs.

Capping Medicaid

Now, they are positioned to do just that with Medicaid. Both the House-passed American Health Care Act and its sister legislation in the Senate would convert the program, in which health care costs are paid based on eligibility no matter the overall expense, to one in which benefits are capped for recipients. This is the plan dogmatic conservatives have been waiting for — and one many of them would like to replicate for Medicare in the future.

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http://www.rollcall.com/news/opinion/mitch-mcconnell-gop-medicaid