EDITORIAL: GOP lost on health care because most Americans have a heart

Give it up, Sen. Mitch McConnell.

You too, President Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan.

Enough is enough.

You’ve worked so hard and long to rob ordinary Americans — especially poor people, older people and sick people — of basic health insurance. You’ve lost and you always will lose. We hope you get that now. Too many other Americans have a heart. Too many other Americans, even among your Senate and House colleagues, actually care about their neighbors.

Most Americans don’t want to repeal Obamacare, not once they really understand what that means. They don’t want to see tens of millions of low-income people get kicked off Medicaid. They don’t want to see older working people, too young for Medicare, get hit with exorbitantly high insurance premiums. They don’t want to go back to the ugly old days when if you were already sick with a chronic illness like diabetes or heart disease — what’s called a pre-existing condition — you couldn’t get health insurance at all, and maybe not even a job.

What do most Americans want? They want Congress to fix health care without kicking people in the teeth. Seven out of 10 Americans, according to a poll this month by the respected Kaiser Family Foundation, want Republicans to work with Democrats to improve the Affordable Care Act rather than repeal it.

So get to it, Mr. McConnell and Mr. Ryan. Accept that after seven years of blowing smoke about the evils of Obamacare, you and your Republican colleagues don’t have a better idea. Not if you put people first and tax breaks for billionaires last. Work with Democrats, finally, to improve the Affordable Care Act.

Above all, don’t sit idly by while Trump does his best to kill the Affordable Care Act out of sheer spite for President Barack Obama. When Trump goes low — and he always goes low — try going high.

“3 Republicans and 48 Democrats let the American people down,” Trump tweeted Friday after a vote on a so-called “skinny repeal” failed in the Senate. “As I said from the beginning, let ObamaCare implode, then deal. Watch!”

This is our American president. For shame.

When will the leadership of the Republican Party rejoin the human race?

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