OBAMACARE AND YES PRIME MINISTER in the WSJ

The House GOP Health Plan Makes ObamaCare Look Good

Republicans kill the mandate to buy insurance, but that makes a market ‘death spiral’ more likely.

House Speaker Paul Ryan introduces the American Health Care Act at the U.S. Capitol, March 7.PHOTO: CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES

By

ALAN S. BLINDER

March 12, 2017 5:57 p.m. ET

Speaker Paul Ryan, Rep. Kevin Brady and Rep. Greg Walden unveiled their plan to repeal and replace ObamaCare last week, and jammed it through Mr. Brady’s and Mr. Walden’s committees. Maybe they should have given it an out-of-town tryout first, because it bombed in Washington on opening night and is drawing bad reviews from left and right. 

What logic drove these experienced politicians to produce such a turkey? It certainly wasn’t economic logic, as I’ll demonstrate shortly. It doesn’t seem to have been political logic either, as evidenced by the scathing criticisms from both sides of the aisle. Maybe, as Bloomberg’s Megan McArdle suggested, it was driven by the hilarious political syllogism from the acclaimed British satire “Yes, Prime Minister”: “Something must be done. This is something. Therefore, we must do it.”

Poor logic. But I guess that’s what seven years of ranting against ObamaCare can do to you.