So, explain it to me

Ah, I had a wonderful vacation, taking a summer class on the history of freedom and democracy in the west at Cornell. Didn’t cover everything, of course, but left our class with a lot to talk about over lunch.

One thing I didn’t do was watch the news, or read any newspapers. Vacation is, after all, vacation.

But now I am back, and I see things are right where I left them. Repeal and Replace. Repeal but don’t replace for two years. Repeal and replace earlier, by letting the free market do what it did before the nation decided that the Affordable Care Act was needed.

Now, President Trump is telling me that we have to repeal and replace because the Affordable Care Act is already gone. Dead. Kaput. There are counties in this great, vast nation where insurance premiums have gone up 50 or 60 or even 100 per-cent.

Darn, but he never says where those counties are. And, when he singles out a whole state - say Wyoming or Alaska - for big increases in health insurance premiums, he doesn’t say how much those premiums actually are.

An oversight, probably.

But, after listening to all of this for the past few days - remember, it sounds new to my vacation-rested ears, and so has more shock value - one question keeps coming up for me. I wish the media would ask someone about it. Maybe in one of those non-televised press conferences, so everyone can argue about what was actually said.

Ready?

If Obamacare is already dead, gone, kaput, why is everyone still arguing? Why do you have to repeal something that is already gone. It’s kind of like executing a prisoner for a series of horrid crimes, then locking him up for 40 years. Sort of a waste of time.

Now I know the President has suggested that we simply repeal the corpse of the Affordable Care Act, but not do anything about it for two years, which would put Congress under a lot of pressure to actually do something about coming up with a replacement for it.

We could let insurance companies sell really cheap health insurance which doesn’t cover very much, or has a huge deductible, and finance our nation’s health care needs with lots of little cans on 7-11 counters, with pictures of somebody who badly needs medical treatment but can’t afford it.

But I don’t think there are enough 7-11 stores in Chicago or New York or Boston to meet the needs of the people living there, and the rural communities in the heartland of America don’t have a large enough population to keep giving and giving and giving as more people get sick from year to year.

Maybe there is a town that is just the right size for this system to work. Springfield, maybe? But which one?

So, now that we have a CBO score and lots of numbers of people who will be without health insurance under the latest version of this Trumpcare plan, it’s up to the media to start getting the right answers to the right questions. Things like these.

“Mr. President, if you won’t own the disaster that is Obamacare, will you own the disaster that will be Trumpcare, or will it be the fault of someone in Congress?”

“Mr. President, you blame the Democrats for not supporting health care reform. But, how could they do it if your party won’t let them discuss it in the House or the Senate?”

“Mr. President, what ever happened to the idea of repeal and replace on the same day, possibly on the same hour? Is two years within the acceptable margin of ‘at the same time?’ that you said would be the goal?”

“Mr. President, when you said Congress should stay in Washington until health care reform is done and that you are at your desk with pen in hand, waiting to sign the new bill, does that mean you, too, will be in Washington pressing the Republicans in Congress to come up with a new health care plan that will be better than the Affordable Care Act, and will be cheaper than the Affordable Care Act and will cover more Americans than the Affordable Care Act?”

And, finally, “Mr. President, will you be able to keep your doctor under Trumpcare?”

Go, media. I’d settle for your asking just one.