This month, Congressional Republicans unveiled the American Health Care Act, which Democrats have unilaterally opposed. It also has been criticized by some Republicans as many have compared it to the Affordable Care Act.
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Davidson said while there’s been “serious objections” to this bill, “I think it’s better than it was last week.”
“I don’t know how much we’ll be able to amend it,” he said. “I’m sure if it truly comes down to a binary choice, as I’ve heard in reports, it may be in trouble.”
President Donald Trump and Washington Republicans campaigned in the November 2016 election on repealing the health care act known as Obamacare.
The Hill, the newspaper for Capitol Hill, reported former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin referred to the American Health Care Act as “RINO Care,” saying it was Republican in name only.
“Remember this is government-controlled health care, the system that requires enrollment in an unaffordable, unsustainable, unwanted, unconstitutional continuation of government-run medicine,” Palin said. “And even in this new quasi-reformed proposal, there is still an aspect of socialism.”
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Davidson said Saturday night that congressional leaders are trying to follow the apparent mandate by the American people based on the results of the November 2016 election.
“Repeal and replace is an iconic promise,” he said. “I don’t want to make excuses … but people didn’t send us there to make excuses. They sent us there to get things done.”
Davidson, who owns manufacturing businesses in Fairfield and his hometown of Troy, looks at health care as a product.
“We want it to be a good product, a product everyone would want because everybody’s going to be using it,” he said. “Everyone in America is going to be affected by this decision … so we’ve got a little work to make this a really good product. I don’t know if we can.”
J.D. Vance on D.C.
Vance in a Q&A with 700 WLW personality Bill Cunningham talked about Trump’s surge in popularity that led him to his November 2016 presidential win. He called it “the Donald Trump phenomenon” because he had a different message than any one seeking the White House.
“There’s a lot of significant things going on in the community for a long, long time,” Vance said. “And for the past 10, 20 years, folks have basically gotten the same message from Republican Party and from the Democratic Party.”
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Republicans have said the way to grow the middle class is to cut taxes and help businesses, and Democrats have said the country needs to invest in social service programs.
“I think people over time have said that neither one of those things are really responsive of what’s going on in my life, or going on in my community,” Vance said.
Vance also hypothesized that Trump’s victory was due to the fact he did not sound like a politician, saying in the presidential debates nine out of the 10 candidates had similar ideas.
And though some of Trump’s comments have been inaccurate during the course of the campaign and in the two months since taking the oath of office, Vance said people don’t care.
“People say, ‘Why aren’t Trump supporters worried about things that come out of his mouth?’” he said. “They just d0n’t care about words from anyone right now. They just don’t trust the process.”
But if Trump and Republicans want to survive the mid-term elections in 2018, they have to deliver on campaign promises.
“I think what is at issue here is Trump’s got to deliver, Republicans have got to deliver,” Vance said. “And if they don’t, folks are going to continue to mistrust politicians and they’re going to take out that frustration on whoever’s in power the next time around.”
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