Sen. Jeff Flake delivered a stark warning to business leaders eager to learn more about GOP plans to remake the health-care system: It’s really hard, and Republicans might not succeed.“There are some still saying that we’ll vote before the August break. I have a hard time believing that,” he told about 150 members of the local Chamber of Commerce here this week.
Similarly, when a hospital employee asked about how to save the Medicaid program, Flake said, “We’re trying to find that balance, and we aren’t close yet, frankly.”
Flake (R-Ariz.) isn’t afraid to buck President Trump — or to defy the Republican orthodoxy in Washington that the agenda is proceeding apace. He did it last year, refusing to support Trump for president, and he’s doing it again now by publicly doubting that the GOP can revamp the nation’s health-care system.
Few congressional Republicans go as far as Flake, fearful that pro-Trump forces could derail their reelection campaigns next year. And Flake is already paying his own price, drawing a conservative primary opponent and probably earning him the distinction as the GOP incumbent most vulnerable to an intraparty challenge.
