A healthcare fraud and disaster was prevented last week.

Now that is has been a few days since I last wrote about the disaster that was the Republican plan to break our health care system. Thankfully that plan was defeated. For now, millions of people who would have been thrown of Medicaid are safe. Hospital depending on Medicaid funds are safe. Planned Parenthood can continue providing low cost health care.

The Affordable Care Act or ACA is certainly not without problems. But these need to be fixed. It seems foolish to destroy the entire system and start all-over when a repair is all that is needed. If you don’t think the individual or employer mandates are a good idea, find something else that works. If you do not like the medical device tax find another source of funds.

The Republicans drafted a secret plan and it kept changing in the quest for 50 Republican votes. In the end, they only got 49.

The real Senate heroes here are Senators Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins. Of the 52 Republican Senators, they were the only ones who resisted pressure from leadership and the White House to vote against these constantly changing plans consistently to prevent the Republican heath care disaster.

When the final “skinny bill” was unveiled, they continued to be “no” votes. The vote count was down to 50 if Mitch McConnell could get all the other Republicans. Then the Vice-President can break the tie.

Senators Lindsey Graham (R- South Carolina), Ron Johnson (R- Wisconsin), John McCain (R-Arizona) and Bill Cassidy (R- Louisiana) held a news conference in which Senator Graham called the bill a fraud and disaster. If this bill was a healthcare fraud and disaster , how could they vote for it. But 3 of the 4 then voted for the bill anyway.

Senator McCain was the only one with the courage to stand his ground and so the bill did not pass. In the end, Senator McCain did the right thing.

The others did not want this bill to become law so they accepted assurance that if this bill passed the Senate, this healthcare fraud and disaster would not be passed by the House. A good bill would then come out of the conference committee and be passed by both Senate and House.

This seems to me to be wishful thinking for several reasons. Think about it and I’m sure you can come up with a few.

Senator Graham was a particular disappointment. I don’t know much about the other 2 so I wasn’t disappointed with them as much.

Lindsey Graham always seemed willing to share his opinion on various issues and I’ve noticed this through several administrations. He seemed a smart and fair guy. But in this case he seems to have bought into a bizarre idea and his vote did not seem consistent with his thoughts.