By Chris Woodward
President Donald Trump says a healthcare plan from Republicans will go to vote after the 2020 election. Is that a good idea or bad idea?
The president tweeted on Monday that Congress will vote on a GOP plan following the elections, "when Republicans hold the Senate & win back the House." Merrill Matthews, Ph.D. of the Institute for Policy Innovation says Trump's plan is just recognition of reality.
"He's going to have a very difficult time getting anything through a Democratic-controlled House," Matthews tells OneNewsNow. "So he said they were going to be working on a plan and they would try to bring it up fairly quickly after the next election when they had a Republican Senate and a Republican House, and assuming he's back in as well," he adds.
According to pundits, Republicans may find this plan a hard sell. Indeed, they did campaign in recent years on "repeal and replace" – but once they controlled both chambers, Republicans couldn't agree whether to repeal and replace at the same time or separately.
"Had they gone with their initial plan of repealing the law in one vote, giving it time to phase out and develop a plan for a replacement, they might have had better success," Matthews argues. "They didn't do that, and it's been a disaster ever since."
Many Democrats, meanwhile, continue to push "Medicare for All" plans, something they say would eliminate many of the headaches with today's insurance system. But Matthews says that's a bad idea, pointing out it was the Democrats who approved ObamaCare and got the country to where it is now.
"Republicans wanted to but they didn't either have the foresight to draft a plan that would work, that would bring on most Republicans' support, and they didn't have the knowledge to be able to refute so many of the things that Democrats have said, and it's left us with a real mess."