Trumpcare may be the gift that keeps on giving but not to those who authored the ill-fated bill which proposed lopping 24 million Americans off the health insurance rolls. After years of GOP attacks on Obamacare, the shoe may be moving to the other foot. It is the democrats turn to bash Trump's plan and Axios tells us that the bashing has already begun. The goal is to win seats in the House and Senate in 2018.
Recess
The immediate GOP problem is that there is a recess when grassroots voters will be inundating their representatives with a good deal of anger over Trumpcare.
In some cases, this will be Obama partisans who flipped to Trump in 2016. In others, it will be folk on the right who see Trumpcare as a betrayal of their anti-Obamacare insistence on repeal and replace.
Representatives on the block
Axios names particular candidates who may suffer because of Trumpcare's enduring unpopularity, even though it has not yet been put to a vote. They include Luke Messer and Todd Rokita (Indiana), Lou Barletta, Tom Marino and Mike Kelly (PA), Barbara Comstock (VA) and Will Hurd (TX). There is always the possibility that any election could turn into a sweep, in which case vulnerability would extend to the entire GOP.
GOP targeted in video issued today
A video titled "Trumpcare 2.0: Another disaster" is out today aimed at the representatives named above.
Supporting the effort is a recent McClatchy-Marist poll that notes almost two-thirds of American voters have a negative view of the GOP Congress. That is a ten percent drop in a single month suggesting Trumpcare as a cause of declining support.
NPR reports widespread anger at GOP
NPR says that backlash against the GOP health performance is showing up in "deep red" areas like upper NY state, Iowa, and Kentucky.
In February, President Trump blamed liberal activists in a tweet: "The so-called angry crowds in home districts of some Republicans are actually, in numerous cases, planned out by liberal activists. Sad!" The public network wondered if the GOP might receive something like the drubbing Democrats got during the 2010 midterm elections.
Bitter medicine
Unfortunately for the President, the anger is real and it comes from all elements of the electorate. Even with the immense effort that was behind Obamacare, it has taken years for it to achieve the stability that it now has. The GOP disses Obamacare at its peril. Many who voted for Trump will be even angrier if Trump succeeds in taking away their Obamacare.
