A Fiscal Reality Test for US Republicans

NEW YORK – US President Donald Trump's first major legislative goal – to “repeal and replace” the 2010 Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) – has already imploded, owing to Trump and congressional Republicans' naiveté about the complexities of health-care reform. Their attempt to replace an imperfect but popular law with a pseudo-reform that would deprive more than 24 million Americans of basic health care was bound to fail – or sink Republican members of Congress in the 2018 mid-term elections if it had passed.