Mark Shields Quotes
I do think what the Tea Party also had was Obamacare and the unpopularity of that, at least at the time. And so whether there is something that is equally unpopular and equally galvanizing that is almost self-destructive from the administration, that's another factor that we will wait and see.
Under his leadership the conservative Republicans had attempted and failed dozens of times to repeal Obamacare which many Republicans campaigned against in the 2012 Presidential election which they also lost. The irony was that even if a repeal were to possibly pass both housed of Congress, President Obama announced that he would veto the repeal. This futile and repetitive wast of time took place where the House was so extreme that it originated almost no legislation that every became law. The conservative Republicans had opposed every attempt to provide a national health system since they blocked President Truman from it. Yet Medicare was passed and became one of America’s most popular programs. Conservatives blocked all efforts to expand Medicare to cover all Americans until President Obama in his first term passed Obamacare. Since then they made all these attempts to repeal it.
The Republicans were trying to repeal the first national health reform since Medicare. But the part was split over what they would replace it with. Many wanted to give the health insurers more power and profits, but other Republicans like Cruz did not want to see the helath insurance premiums increase. Ironically, most members of Congress at the time agreed with Cruz's focus on lowering or at least holding health insurance premiums steady, but this was vert hard to do without heavily regulating the insurance companies or adding a public insurance program to compete with the insurance companies or eliminate the rights of the individual states to regualte and control; insurance in their state. And no majority could be found for any of these.
Mark Stephen Shields is an American political columnist and commentator. He has worked in leadership positions for many Democratic candidates' election campaigns.
