After losing sleep and bouncing off walls for two days I am ready to fight back against Trump---to think about 2018 and beyond. Fighting back means getting the brain to avoid its propensity for "story" and focusing on facts and action plans. Trump can achieve big parts of his non-economy agenda through executive action and getting his nominee(s} confirmed in the Senate. Conservative judges will appease a large part of the religious right but not to suffer reverses in 2018 and beyond he has to deliver both additional red meat to his base plus economic success to everyone else. Obviously he can deliver red meat easily. But if he overdoes, and especially if he doesn't deliver on the economic front, 2018 might not be a cake walk for him and Republicans. 

"Afro"care, or if you must, "Obama"care---the same notion---is inextricably tied to both Trump's red meat and economic deliverance goals, but in different ways. Eliminating and/or revising and renaming "Obamacare", accompanied by a lap dance of red meat and racial overtones, accomplishes the first goal---but how it's done is not easy without risking adverse economic benefits, and a degree of social backlash---which I assume still holds some relevancy with the moderate Republicans who held their noses and voted for him. 

Apparently Trump agrees with a Ryan healthcare overhaul plan which in no big surprise eliminates the  "guaranteed issue" (can't preclude on the basis of pre-existing conditions} and the mandate. Trump has the business sense to see that eliminating these features will make insuring 20 million people even more difficult than it is now. It's a potential mess for him. If the new healthcare plan is bungled, who could escape the tag of "Trumpcare"?

Eliminating the health care of 20 million people would have an enormous adverse economic effect due to the profit and employment importance of the healthcare sector. Ryan's plan was never supposed to work. Trump is the one who has the hot potato and it is for that reason I think, that he reportedly has introduced the idea of allowing insurers to market willy nilly in any state, thereby creating competition and reducing plan costs. For a whole host of reasons explained well by others, the efficacy and reduction of plan costs via interstate marketing is a non-starter.

Thus, it is one thing to get rid of "Afrocare" and another thing to get something to replace it and neither make a mess nor depress the economy. I don't think Trump can get away with eliminating the Affordable Health Care plan or replacing and gutting it without causing a social backlash and a negative impact on the economy. If Trump can't deliver the red meat on Afrocare, he is feckless and incompetent and will lose an edge with his base. If he messes up health care he is a bungler, living up to his history of questionable business ventures. If he eliminates the structure altogether, plan costs will go up and the economy will take a ding---both bad scenarios for 2018 and beyond.

So let's take heart, try to save the health care of millions and hammer the Trump Administration in the lead up to 2018, starting now.