The shutdown debate over expiring enhanced ObamaCare subsidies has put Republicans on the defensive over health care, reopening old wounds over the 2017 attempt to repeal and replace the law.
Fifteen years since the Affordable Care Act was passed, the scars from the repeal effort and the GOP’s lingering disgust for the law are influencing the party’s scattered response.
While Republicans are united in criticizing the law and the need for subsidies, there is no clear plan on how to deal with rising premiums if those subsidies are allowed to expire.
I point this out every time GOP and ObamaCare and Repeal are mentioned.
Republicans in 2016 fucking RAN on repealing the ACA. It was a full blown blitz. In the final years of Obama, Republican-controlled House and Senate fucking PASSED full repeals of the ACA. Obama, of course, vetoes each one of them. They amounted something like 80+ bills to fully repeal it.
Trump runs on getting rid of “ObAmAcArE!” He wins the White House with, again, a Republican-controlled House and Senate.
Not ONE single bill to repeal the ACA was ever introduced. Famously, Republicans said “TWO WEEKS!” for their plan that never came to fruition.
Republicans know how popular the ACA is. They also knew that Trump would be dumb enough to sign a repeal into law.
This is all performative politics: gaslighting their base so that they will look good in upcoming local elections. Republicans, again, fully control the House and Senate and could repeal the law full-cloth but they don’t. Because they know they’ll get slaughtered in the elections.
Also Obamacare is a Republican plan to begin with, it’s essentially the same as Romneycare.