While Donald Trump celebrated the Texas Judge’s ruling which deemed Obamacare “unconstitutional,” senior Republicans in Congress were expressing worry that the ruling would help Democrats rally their forces together and gear up for a party-defining fight over “Medicare for All,” reports Politico.
According to the report, Republicans are worried that the ruling will help Democrats replay a potent healthcare message which helped them flip 40 House seats in the midterm elections. The GOP fear they will be shown as a party insistent on gutting Obamacare and rolling back protections on pre-existing conditions.
Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy made clear the line of attack Democrats will likely adopt, emphasizing that GOP would do everything in its power to take away healthcare from the American people.
“Republicans are never going to give up on trying to take away health care,” he said.
“And it’s hard to figure out how Trump and Mitch McConnell would come up with any strategy to put the pieces back together.”
Republicans already had their backs against the wall when despite having a majority in Congress, they failed to dismantle Obamacare. And now the ruling has provided Democrats further ammunition to attack GOP, as was evident in the statement given by Republican Greg Walden, the current chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, who seemed to have recognized the ruling’s pitfall.
“We have a rare opportunity for truly bipartisan health care reform that protects those with pre-existing conditions, increases transparency and choice, and lowers costs,” he said.
Friday night’s decision spells bad news for Republicans, allowing Democrats to replay a health care message that helped them flip 40 House seats: the GOP remains hellbent on gutting Obamacare and rolling back protections for pre-existing conditions https://t.co/bh9I2adKEz
— POLITICO (@politico) December 16, 2018
Democrats are likely to appeal the ruling, and people familiar with the conservations told Politico that now that they had control of the House, Democrats will put it to a floor vote “that will force GOP lawmakers to either signal support for Obamacare or endorse its elimination — along with the law’s most popular patient protections.”
The result is that GOP will find itself divided. A number of Republicans who won their seats vowed to save the most popular patient protections of Obamacare, and if they don’t live up to that pledge, it will be distressing news for the GOP.
“It’s all the downsides,” a House GOP aide put it succinctly. “Politically, I don’t think that it helps us at all.”
It is not that Democrats are all too happy either. Democrats were pushing to put the universal healthcare message at the center of their 2020 agenda, but now with the ruling, all the attention is back on the current law. But if one thought that the federal ruling against Obamacare was a victory for the Republicans, as Donald Trump was trying to put it, they would have been gravely mistaken.