With a vote on passage of the AHAC pending, ask yourselves why Paul Ryan and the House Republicans would want to construct a bill to replace the ACA containing so many provisions which blatantly contradict their stated aim of providing greater healthcare coverage at lower cost than that provided by the ACA?

Having tarred-and-feathered the Democrats for more than six years for having forced a “Government Managed Health Plan” down the collective throats of the American electorate, would these savvy politicians actually wish to turn around and place themselves in the same position? Passage of the AHAC would do just that as “Obamacare” would be transfigured into “Trumpcare”! Are they actually willing to run the political risk of many in their ranks being voted out of office in 2018 simply to score an ideological victory of sorts? I seriously doubt it!

But, what if the AHAC was fashioned to fail? For House Republicans, what are the pros and cons of such a tactic? The obvious down side is that they’d have “appeared” to suffer the defeat of their first piece of legislation. The trade-off being that they would have avoided the loss of political capital suffered by Democrats immediately after passage of the ACA, and they could trumpet to their base that they’d “really” attempted to fulfill their promise of, “Repeal and Replace”. In addition, a raft of Republicans in both the House and Senate can posture before the TV cameras pretending to be “independent” of president and party which will play very well with constituents still wanting to “drain the swamp”.

Once the public’s attention is diverted by the next outrage, they’d be free to dismantle the ACA by introducing bills, or amendments to other legislation which would be touted as “corrections” to the ACA, but which would actually incrementally destroy it!

Should this analysis of Republican intentions hit anywhere near the mark, the defeat or withdrawal of the AHAC shouldn’t be seen as any sort of success by its opponents. To thwart such a nefarious plot will require even greater vigilance and scrutiny.

As a counter-measure to the behind-the-scene Republican assault on the ACA, I recommend that the Democratic leadership in the House be challenged to introduce measures which would correct any shortcomings of the ACA while also expanding it. While these would probably have little chance of passage, they’d be on record and could easily be contrasted to any Republican attempts to carve away at it.