Mitch McConnell's Heavy Health-Care Lift

Say this for the health-care circus: It has been a master class in how difficult and delicate governing (as opposed to mouthing off) can be. Hill Republicans have had seven years to come up with a workable, palatable alternative to Obamacare. Instead, they have struggled and scrambled and, in shadowy, secret corners of the Capitol, cobbled together a plan—well, a succession of plans—that has thus far proved less popular than Mel Gibson at an Anti-Defamation League convention.  

The impressive thing about the GOP plan is not that voters dislike it. (Though a 17 percent approval rating does merit a certain awe.) Nor that Democrats refuse to engage with it. (This is the definition of a political given.) It’s that, despite having drafted the plan along partisan lines, and with the comfort of a president who has made clear he’ll sign whatever mishmash hits his desk, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is struggling to find 50 of his own members to back the plan. The.