The Juntoo

(This piece is a continuation of, Bixby to Kelly: A Call for a Fallen Son). And respond he did. Coerced by circumstance and directed by decorum, Chief of Staff John Kelly stood before the press on Thursday to address the matter. His wont to avoid loquacity and public appearances finally yielded to political necessity. Soon after Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders concluded her introductory remarks, Kelly took to the stage. There in the briefing room, standing front and center where usually he is least comfortable, the Chief of Staff delivered an extraordinary speech.

His words were, for the most part, extraordinary because of their poignancy and tact. This is what we’ve come to expect from Kelly, who bears the burden of being this administration’s moral rudder. It’s an uncommissioned and underappreciated role, but such is the life of the barnacled yet indispensable rudder; it places him forever beneath the surface and to the insuperable task of steadying the White House’s wayward turns. It’s his stoic solemnity and morality that we hope will steer the ship straight.

He began his remarks by describing the process whereby a soldier killed in action is treated in the field. He did so with neither prompt nor script. As a former Marine general, Kelly is uniquely privy to these painful details. He, more than most, knows intimately the macabre proceedings and explained them with mechanical acumen. With exacting detail, he described how a soldier, once pronounced dead at the scene, is quickly packaged in ice and transported to the European continent. It is there that the hors de combat corpse is chilled again. When sufficiently preserved, the soldier’s final transit begins. He is delivered westward—home.

Once stateside, the deceased serviceman is taken to Dover Air Force base in Delaware, where America’s largest military mortuary awaits. There, he is meticulously examined and embalmed. He is honorably dressed in his final accoutrements, which are immortalized with the iridescent additions of the Purple Heart or Gold Star. Properly outfitted, he is flown home to be venerated and laid to rest. A community mourns, a widow cries, and America gives her fugacious thanks to a young man’s sacrifice. The new entombment thus complete, the soldier lies in peace. While he deserves our diurnal respect, he’ll await our passing appreciation on Memorial Day instead of Veterans Day.

Kelly’s description was far from dramaturgical. He covered the process with surgical sobriety and forced those listening to recognize just how sad and real the process is. He provided the audience before him and Americans tuning in an image rarely seen in the military film. He showed what follows the soldier who pays the ultimate price. He cut through, if only for a moment, the political miasma that has since suffocated these soldiers’ deaths. The tragic part about this past week, aside from four young soldiers’ untimely deaths—which few chose to focus on—was that their stories were subordinate to another narrative. Kelly re-directed our attention and compelled us to think about the corporal implications of a patriot dying in combat.

This, he covered in the speech’s emotional strophe. The antistrophe and epode that followed were at best, unexpected, and at worst, exceptionable. He lamented the loss of yesteryear’s sanctity. He included in his list the following forsaken institutions: women, religion, and life. These three things get to the heart of every conservative’s discontent—not only in this generation, but perhaps throughout all of history. A conservative, in the purest, apolitical sense seeks above all to preserve the pillars upon which the culture is built. But culture, being the chameleon that it is, is forever riddled with radicals revolting for change and conservatives seeking stasis.

While it’s perfectly permissible to miss these institutions in the way Kelly does, one can’t help but feel like he was speaking in bad faith. Perhaps that term is too strong, or inappropriately applied, but it’s the first that comes to mind. Consider how General Kelly’s boss, President Trump, has approached these impenetrable institutions in the past. From Megyn Kelly, to Rosie O’Donnell, to Carly Fiorina, to Heidi Cruz, to Miss America adolescents, all culminating ignominiously in the Access Hollywood tape, Mr. Trump has played no small part in damaging womankind’s worth this year.

As far as religion is concerned, I think it’s safe to say Trump is more Epicurean than Nazarene. He hasn’t made a career of doing the lord’s work, and I see no camels fitting through needle eyes. Trump deigns to one deity and one alone—it’s the supernatural, omnisciently orange moue returning his gaze in the mirror. That said, he did humbly rank one book ahead of The Art of the Deal. The gospels might have Trump beat in both substance, syntax, and sales, but you have to admit, they’ve had an astonishing head start. As for life, I can’t see where Trump has recently failed to uphold it. Though he once favored abortion, he’s now committed to its alternative.

And as for gold-star families, which Kelly mentioned fourth on his list of sacred things of yore, Trump was the prime mover to politicize them. Who can forget his infamous defamation of Khizir Khan, the Gold Star father of Army Captain Humayun Khan. You’ll recall from last summer’s DNC convention, the elder Khan inveighed against Trump while waving a pocket-sized Constitution at the camera. Trump fought back and said his “sacrifices” in the New York business world were tantamount to a serviceman’s sacrifices abroad. This tit for tat was the first in recent memory featuring a presidential candidate actively attacking a Gold Star family.

With this in mind, Kelly’s comments fizzled a bit; they were heartfelt but inescapably hollow. I lament the loss of these sanctified institutions as much as he does, but unlike him, I don’t work for the man who has tarnished more than a few of them on more than a few occasions. Trump may yet improve upon these shortcomings, and I hope that he does (though my hope is guarded when I think about old dogs and new tricks). The irony was that while Kelly listed these lost institutions, he reminded us of who most defiled them in the past twenty-four months.

General Kelly then addressed the puerile pestilence that has engulfed the week. He spoke directly about Frederica Wilson, the Democratic congresswoman from Florida best known for her fantastically distracting array of hats. The Floridian fashionista is seldom seen in public without sequins adorning every inch and sundry, color-coordinated accessories draped head to toe. But this week, it wasn’t her ostentatious panache at the center of attention. She caused a stir when she spoke to the press about President Trump’s phone call to Myeshia Johnson, the widow of Sgt. La David Johnson. Sgt. Johnson was one of four servicemen killed in Niger under suspect circumstances. He, unlike his three compatriots, was retrieved days later and miles away from the ambush’s site.

While en route to the airport to receive her husband’s casket, Myeshia spoke on the phone with President Trump. This exchange, which he had promised to the make earlier that day, sparked an unanticipated controversy.

In the car, Myeshia had by her side Representative Wilson and her late husband’s guardian, Cowanda Jones-Johnson. She answered Trump’s call on speakerphone. You could say it’s imprudent to do this and I’d meekly agree. I think a call from the president is privileged and demands special privacy, but speakerphone, much like Snapchat and autonomic tweets, are all ingredients in modernity’s recipe.

Soon after the conversation was over, Representative Wilson divulged its contents. Its details were only too easily spun to shine a damning light on President Trump. She recounted that Myeshia was told by Trump that her beloved “knew what he was signing up for, but I guess it hurts anyway”. Would these words cut it for a condolence card? Even the least lachrymose would think not. But it’s clear Trump meant no harm with what he said. Reasonably read, he is saying that—like all servicemen before and after him who make this most vital sacrifice—Johnson knew that when he signed his future to the armed forces, this supremely sad potential lurked. In my assessment, it’s this reality that adds to a soldier’s mystic intrepidity, and deserves our veneration all the more.

For whatever reason, this message—that I think Trump intended but made inadequately clear—wasn’t well received. Frederica Wilson was quick to excoriate the president for having spoken so callously. She endlessly inveighed against him for all to hear. In response, because one forever must follow (Trump’s personality proves Newton’s third law), President Trump tweeted, “Democrat Congresswoman totally fabricated what I said to the wife of a soldier who died in action (and I have proof). Sad!”.

While it’s likely Wilson used this opportunity for an expedient political attack, Trump didn’t need to engage in this way. He might have taken Wilson’s words on the chin (which, ironically, were his own) and doubled down with contrition. He could’ve iterated in even stronger terms his personal sorrow, without succumbing to yet another personal spat. But his wonted “doubling down” took its reliable form and the president began his war with Wilson.

It turns out that Wilson did not fabricate Trump’s call. Sgt. Johnson’s guardian, Cowanda Jones-Johnson, corroborated Wilson’s account. She went further to say that the president “disrespected her son” and made Myeshia, the grieving military widow, cry. It was most important, however, to her from Myeshia herself. Today, she broke her silence and averred that Wilson and her mother-in-law’s accounts were accurate.

That said, the three certainly didn’t fabricate their retellings of Trump’s words. And as for the president’s “proof”, he’s persistently over-playing this hand. It was only months ago he alleged possession of tapes that would’ve augured ill for FBI Director Jim Comey. Said tapes and Trump’s proof didn’t exist.

At long last, we’re brought back to General Kelly. For the final part of his speech, he devoted his time to attacking Representative Wilson. His words were memorable, but above all, they were mendacious. He recounted a story from 2015, when he attended an FBI building’s dedication in Florida. Wilson, at that time a potent political voice but not yet an elected official in D.C., was one of the ceremony’s speakers.

Kelly told the gathered press corps of an appalling tale of Wilson’s audacity. He claimed that she hijacked the dedication ceremony in order to pat herself on the back. Based on his account, Ms. Wilson stood up on stage to flaunt the fact that she alone obtained $20 million in funding from President Obama to fund the building. The Sun-Sentinel, a local Florida newspaper, provided video that wholly refuted Kelly’s claim. In it, Wilson is heard to be rather gracious and apolitical. Never did she mention funding nor claim credit for securing it.

Is Trump’s tendency for taraddidles becoming contagious in this administration? I’m no diagnostician, but this seems to be the case. If a man like Kelly, who’s the last bastion of morality, can succumb to lying, a final hope for integrity could be lost. General Kelly would serve himself and the public discourse well if he came out and admitted his mistake. So far, he has not, and there’s no sign he will. At the very least though, it might be said, he hasn’t doubled down.

In 1864, after Antietam but before Appomattox, President Abraham Lincoln penned what came to be known as his “Bixby Letter”. Posterity places it with reverence amongst his best and most moving pieces. Surpassing its impact and immortality, only two speeches stand ahead: these are, of course, the Gettysburg Address and his Second Inaugural Address. The former, delivered some seven score and fourteen years ago, was the trite but enduring three-minute commemoration of the Union’s fallen sons. The latter, set to his presidency’s short-lived second act, was a divinely-infused plea, in which he insisted that the country’s sanguinary past yield to a forgiving future. That prayers from both Union and Rebel soldier couldn’t be answered fully was his everlasting lament.

While the words of those two speeches are inscribed forever where Lincoln sits stolidly in statuary form, the Bixby Letter remains a lesser-known relic. Neither the Gettysburg Address nor the Second Inaugural combines in equal parts the president’s sentiments so deeply, personally, or succinctly. Lincoln wrote it in 1864 and it was addressed to a one Lydia Parker Bixby. She was a New England widow who, after being bereft of a husband, saw five sons succumb to the ravages of war. Forlorn and missing spouse and son, President Lincoln sought to console her in the only way he could.

He wrote to her this message:

Dear Madam,

I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.

Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,

A. Lincoln

His condolence is careful, but perfectly heartfelt. In one paragraph, and one alone, he combines parsimony and poignancy. It’s his epistolary idiosyncrasy; Raphael worked on canvas, Michelangelo on marble, and Lincoln on parchment with pen in hand. His letters were his finest art. The Bixby words convey his decency and decorum in their highest forms. Praised as such, some question the letter’s author and authenticity. Historians believe it to have been the scribbling of John Hay, President Lincoln’s personal assistant. Others consider Madame Bixby’s tale incredulous and the circumstances of her sons’ deaths unreliable. In either case, lacking persuasive corroboration, we’ll have to err on the side of Lincoln and eschew apocrypha.

I was reminded of Lincoln’s letter to Lydia Parker Bixby after seeing what’s transpired this week. It began Monday, when speaking before reporters in the Rose Garden, President Trump was asked to comment on the circumstances surrounding four American soldiers who were killed in action two weeks ago. These American Special Forces soldiers were surveying the border between Niger and Mali—one of Earth’s many inconspicuous crannies we so often forget house our bravest men and women. The American squadron, which was allied at the time with local African troops, was ambushed at the Niger’s western border. The hostilities erupted without expectation. The affair was intended to be one of reconnaissance and not aggression.

Unfortunately, though, this wasn’t the case. Within thirty minutes, a French helicopter arrived to the Americans’ aide but their air support was too late. Mali, you’ll recall, is a former French dependency, itself—along with Senegal and Sudan and so many others—a victim of Europe’s avaricious “Scramble for Africa” in the late nineteenth century. But the victims on this day weren’t locals or colonialists, but the four American troops stationed to promote peace abroad.

The ambush took place on October 4^th. A day later, the remains of the first soldier arrived in Dover, Delaware, whose Air Force base houses the military’s largest mortuary. By week’s end, all four soldiers’ identities had been disclosed publicly. In the intervening twelve days, not a word of recognition or commemoration came from the White House. Trump’s administration, known to be garrulous and glib, was peculiarly mute. The press was as well.

It wasn’t until the twelfth day that the silence was interrupted. Monday’s press conference in the Rose Garden marked the first time Mr. Trump was asked to comment on the African atrocity. Perhaps fault lies with the reporter for not seeking his response sooner, but the president tends to be preemptively forthcoming on matters such as these (while being frustratingly furtive on others). Many observers were surprised that, heretofore, Trump hadn’t commented. Considering his proclivity to tweet and share with the world his panoptic view, it was strange that he missed messaging about this story. On most occasions, he takes great pride, and perhaps takes away some humility, in venerating our military. It’s one thing he does with uncharacteristically unforced sincerity. Other gestures, by and large, appear empathetically devoid.

The cause for his costiveness remains unclear. The White House claimed it hadn’t received a fully verified report on the circumstances in Niger from the Pentagon until that day (the Monday of Trump’s press conference), but this appears to have not been the case. Supposedly, a statement was prepared much sooner, but laid undelivered.

We learned of this information late Monday afternoon. Before the White House could respond, however, the president had to address his inquiring interlocutor. He began by assuring us that indeed he had written letters to the affected families. His intention soon after was to phone them directly.

Then, with a completely gratuitous jab, Trump compared his compassion for dead soldiers and his unique style of commiseration with their families with that of his predecessors. It was an entirely tactless and unnecessary critique. Comparing his approach to fallen soldiers with presidents past, Trump said “If you look at President Obama and other presidents, most of them didn’t make calls. A lot of them didn’t make calls. I like to call when it’s appropriate”. Trump later softened his tone slightly, when he said that “President Obama, I think, probably did sometimes (make calls) and maybe sometimes he didn’t. That’s what I was told. All I can do is ask my generals”.

And of said generals, President Trump saw it appropriate to evoke the eminently sad tale of General Kelly’s son’s death. In 2010, Kelly’s son, Second Lieutenant Robert Kelly, aged twenty-nine at the time, stepped on a IED in Afghanistan. He was immediately killed. His father, the current Chief of Staff, was then the Marines’ lieutenant general and commander of the U.S. Southern Command. The loss was unutterably tragic. Kelly lost not only an essential piece of his Afghan personnel, but an inextricable piece of his own person. Since his son’s death, Kelly has seldom if ever mentioned the event publicly. What’s more, he should never have to. Having not lived through the experience, I can’t imagine the daily anguish a father bereft of his boy endures. If I try, I see a boundless grief gnawing at each day’s wakeful moment and each night’s torturous toss and turn. This is a despair beyond description, and it is embedded for life.

Surely, howsoever short my words fall, this must approximate General Kelly’s torment. The last thing he would want would be for his son’s death to become topical—he would want even less for it to become political. But so far as President Trump concerns himself, his Chief of Staff isn’t privy to his own privacy. The president acted shamelessly aloof to Kelly’s sorrow.

To Brian Kilmeade, who is a host on Fox News Radio, Trump said that as far as other presidents were concerned, “I don’t know…you could ask General Kelly…did he get a call from Obama?”

In trying to make an expedient political point, Trump doubled-down and dragged Kelly into the fray; he swiveled the spotlight and shone it directly on Kelly’s sorrow. The natural next step would be for Kelly to support or refute his boss’s claim. He’ll now be forced to speak to a pain he wanted perpetually kept private. It leaves one to wonder…what would Lincoln say?

These recent and recurrent tag-team approaches to healthcare reform have a certain appeal. With surnames stapled together and tossed to Congress, these binomial bills à deux, have become the recent trend. First came Graham-Cassidy in late September, the health-savings-account-heavy proposal that fell flat on the Senate floor. Now comes its successor, Alexander-Murray. It’s another example of two senators lending both their names and best intentions to change the status quo.

One can appreciate the risk a person takes when he or she puts his or her name on proposals whose success almost always augurs ill. There’s forever a face to attach to the folly if their namesake succeeds and doesn’t deliver, or if it fails to even get that far. Therein lies the appeal. It’s a risk, but not one without slight potential for reward.

Senators Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Patty Murray (D-WA) have introduced this latest proposal to reform the Affordable Care Act. To do so, they reached across party lines, which has become something akin to working treasonously behind enemy lines. Their bipartisan endeavor was many months in the making, and perhaps would’ve lasted longer but for the exigencies we now face.

The pressing need for substantive healthcare reform presses upon us more strongly than before. This was made obvious on Friday when President Trump announced that cost-sharing subsidies would no longer be funded. These subsidies, which promise subventions to the insurance companies covering indigent Americans, are vital if Obamacare is to be sustained and if the present healthcare market is to remain stable. Without them, as I mentioned in a previous post, the insurance companies would be forced to increase premiums on wealthier policy-holders to recoup the costs. Impoverished people would be assured access to their health insurance, as per the ACA’s decree, but the companies providing the coverage couldn’t conceivably do this for free. Without some new, concrete amendment, the whole situation is made fraught.

This situation leaves insurers, policy holders, and politicians looking ahead at an unnervingly uncertain future. Senators Alexander and Murray sensed this burgeoning urgency and revealed their bill. On its major points, the bill is rather straightforward. In exchange for continuing to fund the Affordable Care Act’s cost-sharing subsidies, Alexander and Murray’s bill proposes giving states more discretion and regulatory flexibility in dealing with healthcare markets. Like its Graham-Cassidy predecessor, this proposal provides a similar, albeit softened approach to prioritize before all else a state’s autonomy. Provincialism remains key, as the underlying GOP effort is to shift the focus away from the central government and back to the states.

The Alexander-Murray deal, which touts itself as “a bill to stabilize individual market premiums and provide meaningful state flexibility” would extend funding for Obama’s cost-sharing subsidies until 2019. At that point, the subsidies would be re-addressed and probably lessened. By guaranteeing to extend these subventions for at least two years, the Alexander-Murray bill seeks to stabilize markets in the short-term. In turn, this would give the government and the insurance companies time to re-organize for the future, all while obviating the potentially onerous premium spikes for beneficiaries.

The proposal would also allow individual states to apply for ACA waivers. These waivers would make it possible for the interested states to avoid the ACA marketplace altogether, so long as the state promises comparably affordable plans. Finally, state plans must be made to offer “minimum requirements”, or those benefits understood to be essential and fundamental to any proper health insurance plan.

Unlike its predecessor, the Alexander-Murray proposal is showing promise. Astonishingly, it has garnered support from both sides of the political aisle. From the Left and Right, many unlikely characters have committed their support. John McCain, the recent thorn in many Republicans’ sides on the senate floor and President Trump’s incessant bête noire, smiled upon the plan. He called it a “sign of increased bipartisanship moving forward”. This is not to say his vote is cast, but he appears willing to give it a nod.

Senator John Thune (R-SD) said that the Alexander-Murray deal is “something I think will attract a good number of votes for people who want to see a near-term solution that ensures stability in the markets and enables and sets up a debate down the road”. He continued to hold out hope that “down the road”, that ever-atemporal time, Congress would be able to implement a “more comprehensive solution” like Graham-Cassidy to finally “repeal and replace Obamacare” once and for all.

Surprisingly, Democrats were equally sanguine about the deal. Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) said that he thinks the proposal will pass. West Virginia’s Steve Manchin is likely to support the deal, and others are expected do the same. Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer said that Democrats “think it is a good solution” and that it got “broad support when Patty and I talked about it with the caucus”. He continued to say that “we’ve achieved stability if this agreement becomes law”. Indeed, stability would be a welcome change.

However, not every senator—Republican or Democratic—is on-board. Some have shown hostility to a deal that remains essentially Obamacare. Others have shown trepidation in accepting the vitiating changes to Obamacare’s vital pieces. Still others have the creeping and discomfiting question of whether or not they can endure another possible failure in healthcare reform. Can they absorb yet another defeat, which would only add to their unpropitious congressional pedigree? This question is especially pressing with mid-terms elections soon set to take place.

If Congress had hoped to find guidance from the Executive Branch on the matter, it was left wanting. Speaking from both sides of his moue, President Trump commended and then criticized the Alexander-Murray proposal. Within hours he was at once for and then against the plan. He said on Monday that it was a “good, short-term solution”, before quickly changing his tune on Wednesday by tweeting that “I can never support bailing out insurance companies who have made a fortune with Obamacare”.  He was gruntled, however, to watch Democrats respond to his call for them “to take responsibility for their Obamacare disaster and work with Republicans to provide much-needed relief to the American people”. With that caveat of commendation, he continued on to say that “Congress must find a solution to the Obamacare mess instead of providing bailouts to insurance companies”.

This flies in the face of what Senator Alexander told Axios’ Mike Allen about Trump’s role in crafting the deal. He said that the president “completely engineered the plan that we announced yesterday” and that “he wanted a bi-partisan bill for the short term”. Trump since has made clear this isn’t his prevailing desire. And I doubt very much that he “completely engineered” anything at all. Such an attestation can be immediately dismissed. That’s not to imply he’s incapable of achieving such a feat (I’ll leave open that notion to your better judgement), but the queen bee isn’t known to make the honey—that’s left to the ergate class.

Even if a few senators dissent, this deal doesn’t look like it will sink; the bi-partisan appeal has proven itself too broad. It could be the first, palatable piecemeal bill that we’ve all been patiently awaiting.

Obamacare is dead. And we have killed it. Thus spoke President Trump. But so long as the legislation limps along, the post-mortem is premature. Like a nine-lived feline, who’s not yet spent all second chances, the Affordable Care Act somehow survives. It’s been maligned to the point of moribundity, lambasted to the verge of last rites, yet it remains the law of the land. The Affordable Care Act, so it seems, is itself equipped to contradict death’s decree.

The latest prognosis, however, could change things. President Trump, in a calculated coup de grâce to his predecessor’s ailing legacy, started in motion the process to unravel Obama’s eponymous healthcare law. On Thursday of last week, Trump denuded Obamacare of some of its most important assets. He did so in a few ways. Through an executive order, he made it possible for like-minded guilds and small businesses to band together in order to buy insurance plans through Association Health Plans, or AHPs. An Association Health Plan is intended to ease the onerous restrictions associated with buying policies across state lines and to rouse competition amongst insurance companies providing the plans. If implemented, AHPs would have fewer rules to abide by than those plans covered under the ACA. While this is liberating for some, it could just as readily portend less protection for others.

In addition to implementing the AHPs, President Trump sought also to lift restrictions on short-term insurance plans. This type of plan, whose name is its own explanation, allows beneficiaries to choose cheaper, transitory plans. It is intended for the younger, healthier individual who finds himself uninterested in an expensive and interminable insurance plan. Again, in the same manner as the AHPs, the short-term insurance plans promise to distance themselves from many an Obamacare regulation. The short-term plan suits itself well for the young person in transit from one career to the next, or for the employee unwed to his life’s station, but nonetheless convinced that health insurance is a worthy hedge against interim health crises. This, to me, seems a good deal. Any measure that expands rather than constricts choice is worth pursuing.

The most consequential shake-up came when President Trump announced that the government would cease funding its cost-sharing subsidies. Heretofore, these subsidies—or cost-sharing reductions (CSRs)—were given to insurance companies who provided coverage to indigent Americans. The insurance companies needed a promise and a process whereby they might recoup losses incurred by providing insurance to those who could least afford it. In what became a legally-contentious move, the Obama administration agreed to offer subventions to offset those loses. In effect, the federal government subsidized the insurance companies. Some have called this a “bailout”, but the goal always was to save the country’s penurious citizens from a wretched life without coverage.

By removing these subsidies, the plight of the poor would seem to be imperiled. Mercifully, this is not the case; the ACA’s fine print prevents insurance companies from altogether abandoning these people. Without the subsidy, however, there is less incentive beyond that of altruism to do so. And, for most businesses, altruism for its own sake is seldom affordable.

Because the insurance companies are beholden to covering the poor, the cost differential must be made up somewhere down the line. No longer funded by the government, the insurance companies must pass the poor’s price tag to Americans who are more economically advantaged. Such policy holders, who generally reside in the middle to upper-middle class, could see their premiums increase by as much as twenty percent. This hike will make up the difference, but in doing so, it will infuriate otherwise prosperous families who stand to bear the brunt.

In responding to the now abrogated CSRs, the White House put out this statement: “The bailout of insurance companies through these unlawful payments is yet another example of how the previous administration abused taxpayer dollars and skirted the law to prop up a broken system”.

As previously mentioned, this line follows what Republicans have long contended, which is that the CSRs are in both word and deed illegal. Because they aren’t specified in the government’s appropriations cost, they’ve been invalidly implemented. This is the plain and entirely legitimated line of reason. This contention was heard in federal court, and there the CSR’s illegality was determined. From that time until now, the case has been pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals. And presumably, in suspension it shall remain. I’d be surprised to find Attorney General Sessions hastening to the courts for an immediate reversal.

All of this comes just weeks before November’s enrollment period begins. Insurance companies, who were likely prepared for this scenario as a potentiality ever since President Trump took office, must now dust off contingency plans and decide how best to proceed. Stock and stakeholders will be re-assessing investments and deciding whether or not, in the face of so much foreboding uncertainty, the financial markets are sufficiently stable. Politicians will be called to answer for their constituents’ grievances with impending mid-terms nearing. Worst of all, beneficiaries again will be forced to weigh cost-benefit analyses, as many are sure to see premium costs rise.

Still, stubbornly, Obamacare lives. It plods more ponderously than ever, looking everyday more like a failing revenant than a legal covenant. But until the final blow, it has a pulse.

What is the purpose, President Trump mused Friday afternoon, of a deal that only delays Iran’s nuclear capability for a short period of time? In posing the question this way, Trump seems to have a point. Is our myopia misguided? Is the international community’s Iran Deal—which was collectively agreed upon and codified in 2015—another instance of us kicking the can down the road? President Trump certainly thinks so. If his assessment is right, it’s a well-worn road with which we’ve become too well-acquainted. We’re only now beginning to witness where such a road might end as North Korea descends toward DEFCON 1.

In defiance of his administration’s better wishes, President Trump decided to abrogate the Iranian nuclear agreement, formally known as the “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action”, or JCPOA. He did this not by negating the old deal or affirming a new one, but by refusing to re-certify the legislation as it stands. His reasons for doing so were many, but ultimately, inapplicable to the matter at hand. This was evidenced in the days prior to Trump’s pronouncement. While he readied himself and the press for his big reveal, his cabinet officials corralled to a different tune. All expressed their continued support for the deal.

They, along with all other allegiants to the agreement—including China, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Russia—confessed that Iran indeed has been and continues to be in “technical compliance” with the deal’s stipulations. His top officials made this known; Generals Mattis, McMaster, and Dunford and Secretary of State Tillerson advocated publicly for the U.S. to remain faithful to it. Their chorus, however, was insufficiently convincing. No matter how dissonant he and his staff sounded on this message, President Trump was not to be deterred.

After certifying the deal twice before (a task incumbent upon the president under Congress’s “Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act”, or INARA, which requires the Commander-in-Chief’s authorization every ninety days) it became increasingly unlikely that he would do so again. For years Trump has bemoaned what he called “One of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into”. His overt opprobrium for the deal, which was made apparent during the earliest days of his presidential campaign, presaged this most recent action. There was never a time when his contempt for the Iran deal, or for that matter, NAFTA, TPP, or the Paris Climate Accord, wasn’t fully conspicuous.

The pull-out is completely predictable, but it isn’t predicated on sound logic. Trump cited Tehran’s eschewal of the “spirit of the deal” as the reason for his abstention on Friday. He believes Iran’s government is subverting the nuclear agreement in ways superfluous to its core stipulations. By testing ballistic missiles, abetting radical Islamist groups, and supporting Bashar al-Assad’s repressive regime, Trump believes that for all intents and purposes, Iran has nullified the deal. Certainly, these are horrid infringements on humanitarian concerns and ought to be redressed, but not in this context. It pains me to say that these societal shortcomings do not break the deal’s technical bindings.

The deal was much more sober and specific. It required the convening Europeans and Americans, who had grown increasingly desperate for a deal, to swallow their ardent advocacy for Iran’s amelioration. The Iranian government simply wouldn’t have agreed to sweeping societal reforms dictated from the West. Additionally, not all nations enmeshed in the negotiations were pushing for them (namely China and Russia—the latter of which continues smiling kindly upon Assad’s authoritarian reign). Stalling Iran’s nuclear “breakout” was the exigent demand. Progressive reform, sadly, was not.

In return for lifted sanctions, which were slowly beginning to stifle the nation’s economy, Iran agreed to meet a few important measures. As outlined in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran would be unable to proliferate its nuclear capacity beyond the country’s civilian demands. This is an essential criterion that would serve the world well. When a country has its nuclear infrastructure in place, it is faced with two realities. One is of the nuclear material’s availability and the other of its potentiality. Potentiality, in many cases, takes advantage of availability and leads to weaponization. You’ll recall that it was in this manner that North Korea was able to fashion its nuclear infrastructure at the Cold War’s outset. The USSR provided Kim Il-Sung with materials and know-how for his now penurious people to become energy independent. Moscow’s magnanimity missed its mark, and Kim Il-Sung directed the nuclear plants for other uses. Fast-forward two torturous regimes and we’re confronted with Little Rocket Man and ICBMs.

To ensure its availability would not, in fact, lead to the tantalizing potential for nuclear proliferation, Iran’s government has reduced its yellow-cake cache, reduced its enriched uranium, removed its centrifuges, and provided unprecedented access to its nuclear facilities for internationally-supervised audits. It’s astonishing to consider just how unprecedented this is, and how infeasible this would have seemed only two administrations ago. Few would believe that any nation listed in Bush’s “Axis of Evil” would ever allow this level of international easement.

And surprisingly, by most measures, Iran has abided by these restrictions. While there have been allegations that inspectors haven’t enjoyed full auditorial freedom when perusing Iran’s power plants, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IEA) says the government has been fulfilling its obligations. President Trump mentioned that Tehran “intimidates” said inspectors, but it’s difficult to know for certain if this is the case.

Trump’s overall analysis is far less sanguine that his predecessor’s. President Obama saw the Iran Deal as an essential, albeit imperfect, step in the right direction. It was a necessary exigency to stabilize the region for the short-term. Along with the Paris Climate Accord (which Trump has also suspended), 2015’s Iranian negotiation was the apotheosis of Obama’s internationalism on display.

Just like that, we see another chink in Obama’s accomplishments. The onus now rests ponderously on Congress to decide the deal’s fate. It’s difficult to imagine where the Iran deal finds itself in Congress’s considerable continuum of issues. Surely it’s toward the bottom, as they flounder to address sundry topics like healthcare, tax reform, immigration policy, and the debt ceiling. In importance to your average American citizen, the Iran deal displaces none of these domestic issues. It’s an added strain, though, to an already burdened and buckling congress. A legislature that has proven itself continuously maladroit at home will now attempt to maneuver Iran’s future.

Best of all, they’ll have sixty days to do so. This deadline, which will come in the month of December, is coterminous with the conclusion of President Trump’s Democratic debt-ceiling deal with “Chuck and Nancy”. That too will need to be re-negotiated when the time comes.

As for Iran, however, Congress has three options. First, they can opt to rescind America’s involvement and re-impose sanctions. This most unlikely scenario would re-establish the status quo ante. Any progress made thus far would be stymied, and Tehran probably wouldn’t return to the negotiating table with alacrity. Iran would suffer to some degree economically, but more importantly, American eyes would lose invaluable access to Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The second option available to Congress would be to re-negotiate the deal. The likelihood of this happening rests between improbable and impracticable. Forgetting for a moment that the Republican-led House and Senate can’t even negotiate within their own chambers in America, it’s beyond my imaginative capacity to think they could do so in Arabia. What’s more, Iran has repeatedly declared its disinclination to pursue this route. Their recalcitrantly wed to the deal as it stands, or no deal at all.

It’s not only Iran that has taken this position. All other involved nations, excepting Iran, have said much the same. Germany, England, and France have steadfastly iterated their intention to remain with the deal. This leaves America isolated in this inextricably international affair. Our imposition of sanctions or our insistence on newfangled negotiations would be entirely unilateral, and as such, much less impactful.

Which leads to Congress’s final option: they could do nothing. By acting through inaction, our milquetoast Congress would certify the deal by default. The Iran Deal would thenceforth continue as it has for the past two years unaltered. This, howsoever frustrating for foreign hawks or fans of Trump, is the most likely scenario. Congress could avoid having to struggle for a consensus or negotiate from a weakened position. And because the ball is in Congress’s court, Trump can claim no loss in seeing Iran Deal survive unscathed. Which, in my humble opinion, it ultimately will.