The conventional wisdom is that the Republicans damaged themselves for the 2018 midterm elections for failing to Repeal and Replace Obamacare. The theory is that people who elected them to Congress to lift the scourge of the Affordable Care Act will throw up their hands and stay home, making Nancy Pelosi the once and future speaker. However, according to the Washington Examiner, the GOP has a new gambit to prevent a health care induced blood bath from happening and to turn the tables on the Democrats.
The Democrats want to ram through single payer health care
The National Republican Congressional Committee has started to run digital ads accusing the Democrats of plotting a government takeover of health care. The House Republicans claim that this prospect is not sitting very well with American voters in certain targeted districts.
The ad features House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who is none too popular these days, even among Democrats, and Charlie Gard, the British baby who was born with a genetic defect and whose death at the hands of the British National Health Service seared the conscience of the world. The narrator notes that the same people who foisted Obamacare on America are now plotting to bring about the same government system that killed Charlie Gard.
Will going on offense be of benefit for the Republicans
The Democrats are, naturally, skeptical that the Republican gambit is going to work. They point out that the GOP embarrassed itself when the repeal and replace effort crashed and burned. They also point to polling data that suggests that Obamacare has become more popular than not, a curious finding considered that the system is still in a death spiral.
Moreover, a recent poll suggested that even Single Payer health care enjoys 51 percent support among Americans/
On the other hand, some evidence exists that single payer is not only undesirable but impossible due to its immense cost. If the Republicans can go on the offense and point these things out, the conversation on health care could change from whether or not to keep Obamacare to whether to go to single payer or try a free market solution.
The Democrats are attempting to counter that not all Democrats favor single payer. However, the issue is becoming a litmus test in the Democratic Party. When the speaker of the California Assembly removed a single payer bill from the legislative schedule, he received death threats from the Bernie Sanders wing of the party, The fact that there may be division among the Democrats on the health care issue may play into the hands of the Republicans as well.
