Bill Straub: McConnell learns the hard way that depriving 22 million of health care not the best idea

Listen closely and you might hear the slightly edited and decidedly un-dulcet tones of the late Howard Cosell bellowing in the back of your mind:

“Down goes Root ’n Branch!!! Down goes Root ‘n Branch.’’

Indeed, it has not proved to be a particularly prosperous time for Senate Republican Leader Mitch “Root ‘n Branch’’ McConnell, of Louisville, who this week suffered one of the most humiliating defeats in American legislative history. Despite his reputation as a master of the upper chamber, now understandably disputed, his handling of the health care reform measure intended to replace the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare, will undoubtedly bat clean-up on anyone’s list of how not to get things done.

Republicans have been howling to deep six Obamacare since it was signed into law in March 2010. McConnell, who led the Senate GOP minority at the time was one of the loudest voices, vowing that, when the opportunity presented itself, the law would be repealed “root and branch.’’

Well, the time seemed nigh. Republicans now control the White House, the House and the Senate. Using a quirky rule regarding legislation dealing with the deficit, McConnell was positioned to pass a repeal bill with just 50 votes necessary, averting a potential Democratic filibuster that would have required an unreachable 60.

Ol’ Root ‘n Branch almost smiled over the prospect but fulfilling the repeal process has been, well, difficult. McConnell proved incapable of attracting the votes necessary to ditch Obamacare in favor of a Senate health care bill that can only be described as godawful. He then was unable to convince enough GOP lawmakers to get behind a revised plan.

He eventually offered to get rid of the ACA with the promise that a replacement would magically materialize, as Bobby Blue Bland might say, farther on up the road. Still no dice.

McConnell, as is his wont, is still plugging away. Republican lawmakers met with President Trump for lunch at the White House on Wednesday and ol’ Root ‘n Branch made it clear a vote will be held to open the door to consideration of the Senate alternative next week. Unless several caucus members fold, an outside possibility, his efforts will end in ignominy.

Reasons for the failure are manifold and most of the blame directed at McConnell is well placed despite the protestations of his admirers.

Consider:

McConnell has been promising to get rid of Obamacare for seven years yet he failed to have even an outline to offer as a basis for a replacement when the time came. Instead, after the House finally acted, he appointed an ad hoc committee of 13 old, white Republican men – no women, no African-Americans, no Democrats – to draft an alternative package, giving lie to his stale claim of restoring “regular order’’ to Senate considerations.

The panel developed what the Firesign Theater might describe as a steaming heap of hot-buttered groat clusters. It’s a wonder of the modern era that a single individual gave this atrocity even scant consideration. It will leave 22 million individuals sans health insurance. Those with pre-existing conditions will be forced to pay more for their desperately needed coverage. It would decimate Medicaid. But the good news is wealthy people would receive a huge tax break.

Oh goody goody.

This was all done, under Root ‘n Branch’s direction, without so much as a single public hearing or committee vote, leaving several lawmakers feeling they were left on the outside without any ownership. Those who weren’t in on this joke of a bill blanched when it was presented. Sen. Dean Heller, R-NV, expected to encounter a tough re-election fight, left the reservation early, much to McConnell’s apparent surprise, fearing voter repercussions.

It never seemed to occur to Root ‘n Branch, in dealing with an issue that constitutes about one-sixth of the nation’s economy, to take a go slow approach, get input from various factions and try to come up with a measure lawmakers could live with. Instead he tried to bully it through.

McConnell openly blistered Sen. Rob Portman, R-OH, the one-time budget director for former President George W. Bush, when he balked over the Medicaid cuts, asserting that Portman supported the initiative when he served in the White House. He refused to meet with health care groups who voiced concern, like the March of Dimes – ironic since McConnell suffered from polio as a child.

And he made weird promises – telling moderates they should endorse the measure because the proposed Medicaid cuts would never come to pass – enraging Sen. Ron Johnson, R-WI, a critic of the program, who thereupon accused the Republican leader of a “breach of trust.’’

Ol’ Root ‘n Branch was counting on several factors to provide him with a victory. He expected support from the GOP base because of the proposed tax cuts, about $765 billion over the next decade with the top 20 percent of earners receiving 64 percent of the savings and the top 1 percent of earners — those making more than $772,000 in 202, getting 40 percent.

Tax cuts are the Holy Grail to the GOP, no matter who gets them. And McConnell was banking on lassoing conservatives like Johnson and fellow Kentuckian, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Bowling Green, by cutting Medicaid to the tune of more than $700 million.

Republicans have never cared for Medicaid, part of former President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society program developed in the 1960s. The program is a partnership between the federal government and the states to provide health care coverage to the poor. It was expanded under Obamacare, with several states taking advantage of Washington’s largesse. Medicaid and CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program) added 14.5 million to the rolls by the end of 2015 as a result.

The GOP believes programs like Medicaid are a drag on the economy and provide a disincentive to work, even though a high percentage of recipients are children. That perception was fully realized earlier this month when Rep. Andy Barr, R-Lexington, perhaps the dimmest bulb in the commonwealth’s congressional delegation, a man willing to give the keys to the kingdom to any banker with a hand out while turning his back on needy kids, made a fool of himself during a hearing before the House Financial Services Committee.

Barr posed this question to Janet Yellen, head of the Federal Reserve: “As you know, we’re in the middle of this big debate about Obamacare and whether we should reform Medicaid. Wouldn’t you agree that the structure of our welfare programs, including Obamacare, include disincentives to work?”

He added, “What many employers say to me is that they simply can’t compete with the government for labor, and that the government is paying people not to work.’’ Barr said, asserting that increases in entitlement programs are “eating into the domestic savings of the economy.”

Apparently Barr thinks the way to get the economy moving is to hand out shovels to kids, the elderly and the infirmed. Conservatives have consistently called that tune and McConnell was confidant his steps – along with the tax cuts — would bring the conservatives on board.

The moderates are another matter. But history shows that, after expressing misgivings about this, that or the other in various pieces of legislation, they always fold. Ol’ Root ‘n Branch likely expected a few pot sweeteners would get them in line.

But it didn’t work. Conservatives like Paul, who would pass through the gates of hell before questioning their so-called “principles, balked, complaining that the measure didn’t go far enough in pulverizing Obamacare.

Moderates proved even more entrenched after returning to their districts over a recent break and learning that annihilating Medicaid wasn’t all that popular with the folks back home.

In fact, it now seems that voters, who once overwhelmingly gave the thumbs down to Obamacare, have sort of come around. And depriving 22 million of their health insurance is, well, not the best idea to ever emerge from Congress.

So now this seemingly unbridgeable gap has left our boy Mitch holding the bag. The Senate might be forced to take a reasoned approach to health care with Democrats and Republicans working together to find common ground.

To quote Col. Kurtz, “The horror…the horror.’’

Washington correspondent Bill Straub served 11 years as the Frankfort Bureau chief for The Kentucky Post. He also is the former White House/political correspondent for Scripps Howard News Service. A member of the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame, he currently resides in Silver Spring, Maryland, and writes frequently about the federal government and politics. Email him at williamgstraub@gmail.com.