DODGE CITY

Penny Chenery inherited a coin flip negotiated by her father. Odgen Phillips the owner of Bold Ruler was the other participant. Bold Ruler would be bred each of two years to a set of mares. The winner of a coin flip would get first choice of the foals in 1969. The second would get first choice in 1970. In addition, the loser, as a consolation prize, would get the last remailing foal. In effect the loser ended up with two horses. Phillips won the toss, but the first horse never did much. Neither did the second choice taken by Penny Chenery. But the consolation prize, the third horse, turned out to be Secretariat, arguably the best race horse ever.  Sometimes you win by losing.

Republicans botched it and were unable to come up with a plan to repeal and replace ObamaCare. They look like squabbling fools. They are pathetic. However I have been following this bill closely and I personally think they dodged a bullet. The problem is that any bill acceptable to moderates would still look a lot like ObamaCare. That is why critics call it ObamaCare Lite. On the other hand any bill that met the requirements of groups like the Freedom Caucus would have been equally bad, on the other extreme. This bill would have fixed nothing, except the blame and that would have fallen solely on Republicans.

So while Democrats are rejoicing, keep one thing in mind. ObamaCare is coming apart at the seams and Donald Trump is right, Democrats “own it.” Not a single Democrat voted for the bill and not a single Democrat made any recommended changes to the bill. They are focused solely on obstructing Republicans and then rejoicing because nothing gets done.

Republicans dodged a bullet by failing to replace ObamaCare with a fiasco. Even if they had passed a great bill, the media and the Democrats would have presented it as a train wreck. All the downsides would have been magnified and the good sides ignored. On the other hand, if (when) ObamaCare implodes the result will be loud demands for somebody to do something about it. While those of us familiar with ObamaCare understand the problems, many people remain oblivious. The pain has been painted over with major funding by the federal government. Trump many not have been able to repeal and replace ObamaCare but he isn’t going to fund it either. Neither are Republicans in congress. Major pain is on the way.  The only reason a lot of people like ObamaCare now is that they don’t have to pay for it.  That is about to change.

In addition, Trump is now likely to get the rest of his agenda passed quickly, including tax reform. Republicans will not be enthusiastic about another embarrassing defeat. In the meantime, Dodge City is a good place to be.

TDM