I’m grateful to the three Senate Republicans, but I still don’t trust them

Nathan Empsall
Jul 28, 2017 · 4 min read

I am grateful to Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and John McCain for voting against last night’s immoral “skinny repeal” of the Affordable Care Act. I am even more grateful to the 48 Senate Democrats who stood united, and to every citizen who put the pressure on Congress.

But while I’m grateful to the three Republicans and believe all three deserve enormous credit and thanks, I also don’t trust them past this week.

Let’s not forget that every Congressional Republican still wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act and slash taxes for the rich — they just can’t agree on how. Democrats are the ones consistently defending Americans’ coverage. As McCain’s post-vote statement and his votes from earlier in the week made clear, he’s more than happy to vote for other repeal efforts that raise premiums and gut coverage. In fact, at least one proposal he voted for is very similar to those that the Congressional Budget Office said would take insurance away from more Americans than would the Skinny Repeal. At least Collins and Murkowski voted against that.

Image via CSPAN via Mike Debonis on Twitter

Of course, none of this changes the bottom line: Thanks to every Senate Democrat, Collins, Murkowski, and McCain, the Affordable Care Act is still law, and we still have our health insurance. This certainly erases 80% of my anger toward McCain from Tuesday. But I still can’t give him much credit for that day’s speech about “regular order” and “the protocols and customs of this body.” Remember, McCain— along with Collins and Murkowski! — voted to destroy the filibuster the very first time Democrats used it against them, despite all three being on the record as believing the “nuclear option” was a terrible thing. That was sheer hypocrisy — regular order, my eye.

Nevertheless, it is still to McCain, Collins, and Murkowski’s credit that they, unlike most of their colleagues, are after more than a cheap political win for their base, and truly do care what replaces Obamacare. That is not true of the majority of their caucus, who vote for whatever McConnell and Trump throw their way.

Oh, perhaps a few more — like Heller, Portman, Graham, and Capito — also care about what replaces the ACA, and were simply duped into voting for “Skinny Repeal” because they believed Paul Ryan’s last-minute promise that the House wouldn’t just pass the Skinny as law and that there would be a conference. But if the Senate hasn’t come up with anything that can pass it by now, why do we think it would during a conference? And when the conference fails, what’s to stop Ryan from passing the SR then? I won’t call the way these few additional senators voted “immoral,” but I do believe that it was reckless and gullible. Most in their caucus want to take health insurance away from millions of Americans, and even if these few don’t, they were at least willing to risk it. They have to live with those votes today, and the next time they’re up for re-election.

I won’t pretend that Obamacare is perfect. It has its flaws. It was designed to expand coverage, not reduce skyrocketing costs. And of course, no plan or project stays unchanged once implemented, especially large legislation. Just like Social Security in the 1930s and later Medicare, numerous fixes and amendments to the Affordable Care Act might have passed over the past six years if Republicans weren’t hellbent on obstruction — “nothing but repeal.”

There’s obviously still a great deal of work to do on the health-care front. The proper way to fix those issues is to say, “Wow, here are four problems in the American health care system — let’s fix those four problems!” Save last night’s three courageous holdouts, that is not what Republicans have done. That is, however, what Democrats have tried to do.

The Democratic Party is broken 8 ways to Sunday, but I still call myself a Democrat, and I am very proud of the 48 Democrats who held the line on every single Obamacare vote this week. I am deeply grateful to Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and John McCain, but their assistance was just a supporting role, and it was certainly only temporary. If there’s one thing that this week proves, it’s that there are clear differences between the Democrats and Republicans. “Both siderism” is a pipe dream. And like the Affordable Care Act, I want to fix the Democratic Party, not abandon it for its flaws.

Nathan Empsall

Written by

Episcopal seminarian at @YaleDivSchool & @YaleFES. Digital organizer, @BarackObama & @SierraClub alum. Texan via Idaho. Americana music fan. #BlackLivesMatter

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