29th March 2017, 9:18 PM
Just to add a bit to the above, I forgot to mention again one really important part of why the health care bill failed, that the only way to get it through would be for a strong leader to put a sustained, well thought through effort at pressing their party to support it. Between Trump's low intelligence, childish antics, inability and unwillingness to learn how the government works, and resulting incompetence, he provided none of that leadership. Obama spent 13 months working hard to get the ACA passed. Trump quit after 17 days, demanding a vote because he was bored of the details of health care. Now, because the bill was going to pass through budget reconciliation they don't have over a year to spend on it, but even so that he quit so quickly shows the degree of his utterly unprepared and incompetent manner and administration. I knew Trump was not smart, but I was surprised at the depth of Trump's ignorance about our political system; you'd think that after spending so long running for office he'd have learned SOMETHING! But no, he's too stubbornly ignorant to bother trying. Well, just like with the Freedom Caucus's entitled intransigence, in this case that helped save health care, for now at least.
Of course that is no excuse for why Paul Ryan had such a bad plan after seven years of supposedly hating Obamacare, but even with a better one you would have needed strong leadership on the top to get it through, and Trump is not able to provide that. That has been obvious for a long time, but it became even more obvious after the election -- when it came out after he won that Trump did not know what the President really did, that he'd have to replace the whole White House staff, etc, etc, it was clear that he had never cared enough to actually look at the details of what this job he worked so hard to get's actual duties were. And now that he has the job, it's just as obvious that he never will care enough, or be smart enough, to even begin at handling it even semi-competently.
Of course that is no excuse for why Paul Ryan had such a bad plan after seven years of supposedly hating Obamacare, but even with a better one you would have needed strong leadership on the top to get it through, and Trump is not able to provide that. That has been obvious for a long time, but it became even more obvious after the election -- when it came out after he won that Trump did not know what the President really did, that he'd have to replace the whole White House staff, etc, etc, it was clear that he had never cared enough to actually look at the details of what this job he worked so hard to get's actual duties were. And now that he has the job, it's just as obvious that he never will care enough, or be smart enough, to even begin at handling it even semi-competently.