Schneider: On health care, Republicans have some explaining to do

There's a saying among political operatives during campaign season: "If you're explaining, then you're losing."

This maxim makes sense in a campaign setting: If your opponent has you on your heels and you're playing defense, you don't get the chance to express your own positive vision. It's why attack ads work so well — if you can dictate your adversary's talking points, you set the agenda.

This philosophy, however, has spilled over into actual policymaking, where explaining is now evidently for losers. A group of Republican senators is huddled somewhere in D.C. hammering together an Obamacare repeal bill that both moderate and conservative senators can support. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is hopeful he can get the bill to the floor for a vote before the Senate's Fourth of July recess.

The problem with writing the bill in secret is that it allows Democrats to vilify it in public without knowing what's in it. In the past, voters were skeptical of government involvement in private-market health care, but Obamacare has changed that; Democrats can now argue Republicans are taking something away. And they can do it almost unchallenged, as tight-lipped Republicans have left Democrats with a media monopoly.

Further, voters don't like being kept in the dark. According to a CBS poll released Tuesday, 73% of Americans believe the GOP should discuss their version of the bill publicly. Of those who responded, only 23% said they have an understanding of exactly what the Republican health care plans will do. It is this confusion that is likely driving the bill's unpopularity — only 32% of Americans approve of the version of the bill passed by the House several weeks ago.

One of the most damaging aspects of crafting the health care bill in secret is that it cedes the high ground to Democrats, who seven years ago sat in Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's office and stitched Obamacare together outside the view of the public. While there were public hearings on the bill, it was loaded up with special perks for vulnerable senators (launching the term "Cornhusker Kickback" into the American lexicon) and, using arcane parliamentary procedures, rammed through without a single Republican vote.

During the current debate over the AHCA, Democrats have tried to rewrite the history of Obamacare's passage, pretending that it was an open, honest process. In January of 2010, with the Senate and House having passed different health care bills, President Barack Obama called a bipartisan group of legislators to the Blair House to discuss the legislation. But, as House Speaker Paul Ryan recalls, the meeting wasn't a "negotiation," it was a "charade."

"I was ticked off that the summit turned out to be nothing more than a publicity stunt," Ryan wrote in his book "The Way Forward: Renewing the American Idea." After the meeting, Ryan said Obama walked over to him and said, "We should sit down and talk about this stuff."

The call never came.

The Obamacare vote, of course, beget the tea party movement, which played a role in the heavy Democratic losses of 2010, 2014 and 2016. Until the AHCA came around, Obama's health care plan was never popular: On the eve of its House passage on Christmas Eve of 2009, it "enjoyed" 38.4% approval, with 51% opposed, and remained underwater for seven years.

And yet it seems Republicans are using the Obamacare debacle as inspiration for their Obamacare repeal. If "ram through a bill nobody understands in order to fulfill a campaign promise" is now part of the legislative blueprint, the GOP needs new architects.

The secret AHCA deliberations are showing that when legislating, the opposite of campaign rules apply: Republicans are losing because they're not explaining. That's because when lawmaking begins, secrecy turns the American people into your opponents.

Christian Schneider is a Journal Sentinel columnist and blogger. Email christian.schneider@jrn.com. Twitter: @Schneider_CM