Frank Alegria, Patriot Academy Alumnus
In March 2010, Democrat leadership in the House and Senate passed the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act, filled with an endless sea of contradictory mandates and regulations. Soon thereafter, then-President Obama signed the bill, many calling it his single signature achievement as chief executive.
Republicans promised a repeal to “ObamaCare,” as they called it, and an end to the overregulation of health insurance – but if only they had the House votes to do so. The American people obliged. In a historic victory for conservatives across the nation, the GOP picked up sixty-three seats in the lower congressional chamber, leaving Democrats confused and in disarray.
It was then that Republican leadership began to complain it wasn’t enough – they needed control of the Senate as well. And so again conservatives got out the vote in the 2014 midterm elections, handing nine shining seats to the leadership to fulfill their promises. But still it wasn’t enough – Republicans needed the presidency too.
Americans were frustrated. Minus a select few, elected officials were constantly betraying their constituencies right and left. With timid leaders refusing to use the leverage they had in the government shutdown in 2013, and passage of the massive CRomnibus in 2014, many began to become disheartened with the party, most especially with its “leadership.”
And so in 2016, Americans went out on a limb and ditched it all, dropping mainstream party officials, even trusted conservative leaders, electing Donald J. Trump as president. Why? Because as a businessman, his speciality was “getting the job done.” Why wouldn’t he help Republicans do so as president?
Halfway into the new year of 2017, the issue of healthcare reform is sadly still a problem. Republicans, controlling both Congress and the White House, have done absolutely nothing to dismantle the mess that is ObamaCare. The promised action has evolved from across-the-board repeal to a gradual “chipping away” to a watered down version of the detestable law itself.
As the Senate determines their next “course of action” pertaining to ObamaCare, perhaps it would do well that they remember it was “We the People” who elected them on the promise of full repeal. “We the People” who empowered them to actually do so. That it is “We the People” who are being betrayed. That, should they fail, “We the People” will do something about it.
And so, please, remember, Republicans.
