Let me say right up front that I’m skeptical of the following report. But then, maybe I’m blinded by partisanship. Who knows? In any case, here is Noam Levey writing in the LA Times today:
After five years and more than 50 votes in Congress, the Republican campaign to repeal the Affordable Care Act is essentially over. GOP congressional leaders, unable to roll back the law while President Obama remains in office and unwilling to again threaten a government shutdown to pressure him, are focused on other issues, including trade and tax reform.
Less noted, senior Republican lawmakers have quietly incorporated many of the law’s key protections into their own proposals, including guaranteeing coverage and providing government assistance to help consumers purchase insurance.
….At the same time, the presumed Republican presidential front-runner, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, has shown little enthusiasm for a new healthcare fight. Last year, he even criticized the repeal effort….“Only 18% of Americans want to go back to the system we had before because they do not want to go back to some of the problems we had,” Whit Ayres, a veteran Republican pollster [said]….”Smart Republicans in this area get that,” he added.
Well, maybe. Levey concedes that there will still be plenty of calls to repeal Obamacare during the 2016 presidential campaign, but he believes that in practice, Republicans will be unwilling to seriously gut a program that’s now providing health coverage for 20 million Americans, a number that will only increase over the next two years.
This is an argument I’ve made myself on multiple occasions, so I ought to be sympathetic to it. And I guess I am. On the other hand, I’ve been repeatedly astonished at the relentlessness of the GOP base’s hatred of Obamacare. Over and over, I thought it would fade out. Maybe when the Supreme Court ruled it was constitutional. Maybe when Obama won in 2012. Maybe when the law finally took full effect in 2014. But like the Energizer bunny, their unholy enmity toward the law just kept going and going and going.
So is Obamacare Derangement Syndrome finally burning itself out? I guess I’ll believe it when I see it. But maybe.
