US President Donald Trump is furious as usual, this time because his attempts to once again overthrow former President Barack Obama’s healthcare plan, the Affordable Care Act, with his own, less inclusive American Health Care Act have been foiled. He’s like Skeletor and Obama is He-Man and every week, he tries to destroy him, and every week, he fails, because the hero prevails and also if he succeeded in crushing him, there wouldn’t be another episode next week.
What maddens Trump the most is not that the left-wing Democrats are voting against his bill – he hates them, but that at least is to be expected – but that the right-wing Republicans of his own party are voting against it.
Some Republicans have their doubts about the bill, which cuts back on health benefits to women, transgender people, and other groups that the Republicans generally ignore. So, clearly Trump has been a little too harsh in all the cutbacks to people’s, you know, rights.
A lot of Republicans are on board with the bill
That being said, there are many Republicans who stand proudly with the AHCA bill, dubbed Trumpcare, and the whole thing has torn the party apart. Their views are usually so ignorant and one-note that it’s easy to get them all on the same page about something, but in the area of healthcare, Trump is struggling with that to say the least. But he won’t stop until he has repealed Obamacare, as God is his witness.
Trump’s dreams of repealing Obamacare seem to go beyond the desire to have his own system in place. He’s starting to develop a personal hatred for Barack Obama, first of all because his healthcare bill got passed with flying colours and Trump has been struggling with his since day one, and also because he feels like Obamacare is staring at him, mocking him (like the rest of us are).
On Capitol Hill, the night was tense as the Senate’s votes came in one by one to show who supported Trump and who did not. It was like the scene in “Lincoln” where every state votes “yay” or “nay” on whether or not to abolish slavery. It was neck and neck until it came down to Republican Senator John Mccain – who ran against Barack Obama in a tense Presidential election race back in 2008 and has recently been diagnosed with brain cancer – to cast the deciding vote.
McCain voted against the AHCA
As the final nail in the Trumpcare coffin, McCain voted against the legislation, and now, Obamacare, the plan put in place by McCain’s former election rival, stays. McCain has never been a fan of Trump. Back in his first week as President, when he said that the US military would have to “fight fire with fire” and bring back torture, McCain was outraged. McCain, it’s worth mentioning, is a veteran of the Vietnam War, where he endured copious amounts of torture himself at the hands of the Viet Cong.
Trump was very angry that the Senate had voted against Trumpcare, and of course, tweeted about it right away. He noted that the 51% of votes that kept Obamacare in place came from three Republicans and 48 Democrats, who Trump said have “let the American people down.” Then he added, “As I said from the beginning, let Obamacare implode, then deal.
Watch!” Okay, we’re watching.
Senate Majority Leader: ‘This was a disappointment’
Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader, was clearly on Trump’s side on the issue of healthcare, as he told his cohorts after the vote, “This was a disappointment, a disappointment indeed.” McConnell’s bill, the Health Care Freedom Act, has been referred to as a “skinny repeal” of the existing bill. He doesn’t want it to be legislated – he just wants it to start a conversation that leads to compromise between the Democrats and the Republicans. Good luck with that!
