The single most fervent, most repeated rallying cry of the Republican party over the last 7 years has been “Repeal Obamacare”. Nothing is even in second place. Not even “he’s a Muslim”. Since the GOP seized control of the House in the Tea Party surge in electorate idiocy, that august body has voted over 60 times to repeal Obamacare. Just think of that – more than 60 times they put forth a bill and voted for a measure that had no chance of becoming law because the White House was occupied by the man for whom the bill was named. None of the members ever articulated a compelling reason for wanting to repeal the measure, but nevertheless, they were ardent in their opposition.

Opposition to the bill was easy. Social legislation like the Affordable Care Act is difficult even with everyone working towards a successful outcome. In previous efforts, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, subsequent legislation was required to improve each bill’s implementation and impact. With Obamacare, no tweaking was permitted. No improvement. No care and feeding. The legislation was pushed out into the world to sink or swim. Every flaw was reason to abandon the effort entirely and to criticize extensively.

Throughout these seven years, the Republican leadership promised that they would “Repeal and Replace” Obamacare with their own plan. The plan was ready, we were told, and would be unveiled as soon as the repeal legislation passed. The Republican plan was like a subway train late at night – always coming but never arriving. No one ever saw this replacement and the GOP didn’t need to actually have a better bill, since President Obama would veto any repeal. They kept shooting because they knew they were shooting blanks.

Then the unthinkable happened and Trump won the White House. In all of their legislative districts, these Senators and Congressmen had promised to immediately repeal this horrible bill after the election and replace it with something “much better” or a “really, really great plan”. Now they were forced to put forth their plan. In poker, this is known as “calling your bluff”. Ok, Paul Ryan, watcha got?  Ends up, they got nothing.

Republican House and Senate members discovered 2 important points almost immediately after the election. The first was that 22 million people no longer feared health and financial catastrophe because of Obamacare and they were not going to give up that hard won right without a fight. Legislator’s offices were inundated with calls and petitions and their formerly cozy “Tea Parties” in their home districts became raucous confrontations with their own constituents. They’ve been surprised apparently. You may ask, “What did they think would happen when you threatened 22 million people with taking away their insurance?”

The second shock to the Republican members came a few weeks after the election when they came face-to-face with the reality that their leadership had no replacement plan ready to put forth. It’s not that they didn’t have a good plan. They had no plan. What to do? Well, the GOP leadership retreated to Philadelphia for a meeting to discuss their legislative agenda, including health care. One Republican legislator departing the meeting said, “There have been zero specifics offered and it is fascinating to see the lack of clarity on this issue.” Another said, “There was no breakthrough, no specific timeline, and no specific proposal.”

A week later, back in Washington, House Republicans held a 2 1/2 hour private session on health care that was characterized by 2 members as “pathetic” and by another Congressman as “a farce.”  On the Senate side, in early February, Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn) said, “To be honest, there’s not any real discussion taking place right now”and that the Senate had not really begun in earnest to work on a replacement plan. Well, why would you need to? We’ve all been told for 7 years that you had a better plan ready to go. Where is it? What happened to it?

Since the ACA legislation was passed, the percentage of uninsured people in this country dropped from 15.1% to 8.6%, the first time that our nation’s rate had fallen below 9%. As mentioned earlier, 22 million people are now covered by health insurance. An estimate by the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget projects that a repeal of Obamacare will cost the US $350 billion over the next 10 years. If the ACA needs tweaking (and it certainly does), then tweak it, and let’s move on to other pressing issues, but stop this nonsense.

The GOP’s bluff has been called and they are holding nothing. In this game, there seem to be no winners, but there very well might be 22 million losers.