McConnell Is Bailing On Trumpcare Even If It Passes The House

Mitch McConnell’s attitude toward Trumpcare will actually make it even more difficult for the bill to pass the House. As Jonathan Chait notes, McConnell’s publicly stated plan is to get Trumpcare off the table as fast as possible. Whether it passes or not does not seem to be his primary concern. If that is the case, there are a lot of House Republicans who are being strong-armed by Trump and Ryan to pass an incredibly unpopular bill when they know it will only die in the Senate.

According to McConnell, “We’re not slowing down. We will reach a conclusion on health care next week. We’ll either pass something that will achieve a goal that we’ve been working on. Or not.” His intent is to simply take the House bill and put it up for a vote, at this point knowing it will fail. The gap between the hard liners who think the bill is too generous and those who think it is far too punitive is enormous and will not be bridged in just one week, especially in the Senate.

McConnell is a realist and he knows this bill is incredibly unpopular. That doesn’t mean he won’t take up an Obamacare repeal next year and once again try to make it an election issue, especially after another round of premium increases and potentially more counties with just one provider. But even that might be risky as the GOP now at least “owns” Obamacare now by not being able to fix or repeal it.

Right now, as Chait says, “A long bleed-out on health care will make Trump and his party even less popular, and chew up precious months during which the Republicans could instead be making use of their full control of government. The plan being pursued by McConnell is that of a man who wants to cut his losses fast.” And that should make his colleagues in the House even more nervous about their vote tomorrow.