I've become convinced that President Trump is a political hermaphrodite.  The top half is Republican – pushing for lower taxes, border security, and cuts to counterproductive regulations.  But if the top half of President Trump is Republican, the bottom half is Hillary Clinton, a side of the president that wants to keep amnesty in place for millions of "DREAMers," wants to spend a trillion dollars on "infrastructure" like Obama, and now is fighting tooth and nail to preserve the worst parts of Obamacare.

It's the part of the president in the pantsuit that worries me.

Trump is demanding that the GOP pass the "Obamacare Lite" bill, which preserves the budget-busting Medicaid expansion as well as most of the regulations that cause insurance premiums to be expensive.

Budget Director Mick Mulvaney has just laid down a gauntlet to House Republicans on behalf of President Trump: pass this bill, or Obamacare remains in place.

Members of the conservative Freedom Caucus want more concessions but, according to Mulvaney, Trump will not negotiate further.

This debate should be all about unleashing the free market and giving people freedom of choice.  Why shouldn't an individual be able to buy an insurance plan that doesn't cover maternity care?  What possible use could that be to a single 20-year-old man or a married 50-year-old woman?  Why shouldn't an individual be able to buy a plan that doesn't cover drug addiction, if one is not a drug addict, or mental health care, if one is not crazy?  Why shouldn't a person be able to choose a plan that doesn't have 10 million dollars in coverage?

President Trump doesn't want you to have these choices.  He wants all of these features to stay in Obamacare Lite, or Trumpcare, as I call it, which is why premiums won't go down.  The worst offender, of course, is pre-existing conditions, which lets people be free riders until they get sick.  We hear sob stories about people denied insurance who are very sick.  Why shouldn't they be denied insurance if they haven't paid into the system for years?  Do we award people fire insurance retroactively after their houses burn down?  No.  So why are people who wait until they get sick entitled to the same?

And why is Trump adamant that we continue to fund Medicaid expansion, when Medicaid is going to bankrupt states when they have to pay for it?  It's robbing the future to pay the present.

I've read the reports of Paul Ryan literally begging congressmen for their votes, even playing games of charades with one.

Ryan got down on a knee to plead with Rep. Don Young, an 83-year-old from Alaska who is the longest-serving Republican in Congress and remains undecided.

When the speaker finished with Young, he spent about 10 minutes in an animated discussion with Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), one of the bill’s most outspoken critics. At one point, the speaker took his own arms and held them up, his hands at face level, then slowly lowered them to his waist – presumably trying to demonstrate his belief that the bill will lower costs.

But Trump has not been helpful in any of this.  Quite the opposite, with his ridiculous ultimatum.  If Obamacare Lite passes, we will have lost our last chance to get rid of Obamacare.

If I were a congressman, I would vote no on Trumpcare.  President Trump promises this will be the only chance to get rid of Obamacare, but we know now that his word means nothing.  He can take totally opposite positions on a daily or even an hourly basis.

At least if we are stuck with Obamacare and it fails, we will know whom to blame.  But if we put Trumpcare into place and that fails to reduce premiums, Republicans will take the blame.  This is the disastrous plan that President Trump is pushing on the GOP.

The only bright side to all this is that at least the election didn't give us Hillary's top half as well.

Ed Straker is the senior writer at NewsMachete.com.