After House Republicans failed to overhaul Obamacare, President Trump announced he was moving on to tax reform. Three weeks later, the president has turned his focus back to healthcare. He sounded confident in the decision, telling the Wall Street Journal that “I think I will get it done.”
No doubt, the change will be diagnosed as presidential attention deficit disorder. But it shouldn’t. The course change shows instead that Trump’s finally getting his bearings inside the beltway.
Everything was rushed last time Republicans tried repealing and replacing Obamacare. Dismissing concerns from within his own party, House Speaker Ryan described the question as “a binary choice” while Sean Spicer announced the White House didn’t have a “plan B.” The whole thing failed predictably and spectacularly.
And as the American Health Care Act was going up in flames, Trump seemed standoffish. Other than sending a few tweets and hosting a couple of meetings, it wasn’t clear that the president was invested. That’s not surprising. Trump won the election promising jump start the economy and build walls and bridges, not wade into a complicated policy fight over health care. Numerous times, he’s said he wants to let Obamacare collapse and “blame the Democrats.”
A result of either compulsion or his own conscience, Trump has apparently finally signed onto the effort. And that’s a good thing. The president might want to slash taxes and build bridges but Republicans have been promising to repeal Obamacare since before the ink of the last president’s signature dried on the bill.
The herculean task of repeal and replace will take tremendous energy and focus, things not seen from Trump so far. And while declarations don’t amount to victories, the president’s announcement is an important first step.
Philip Wegmann is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
