Republicans have a major problem on Obamacare.
The parts that they don’t like and the parts the public doesn’t like, they are not the same parts.
You can see this if you watch Mitch McConnell from Face the Nation. Watch what he says here really closely. Because it shows
where "repeal and replace" is going to be incredibly hard for the GOP.
"What you need to understand is that there are 25 million Americans who aren't covered now."
"If the idea behind Obamacare was to get everyone covered that's one of the many failures."
"n addition to premiums going up, co-payments going up, deductibles going up—many Americans who actually did get insurance"
"when they did not have it before have really bad insurance that they have to pay for, and the deductibles are so high that it’s really not worth much to them."
"So it is chaotic. The status quo is simply unacceptable."
And it's not just McConnell. Donald Trump just gave an interview to the Washington Post. He said,
his Obamacare replacement will cover everyone. He says that the insurance will have lower deductibles and it doesn't matter if you can't pay.
Somebody's going to take care of it for you.
I agree with this case against Obamacare.
The law really didn't cover everyone. Premiums, copays, and deductibles, they really are too high.
Forty-three percent of enrollees have a deductible above $2,500.
There are a lot of people being pushed to buy insurance that will break their budget before they ever get an opportunity to use it.
But, here then is a question McConnell and trump need to answer. Are they really promising,
REALLY PROMISING
the Republican replacement will feature more coverage, lower premiums, copays, and deductibles?
I asked McConnell’s office this question. They refused to say.
His spokesperson just said, "He's been clear not to predefine the replacement measures"
"other than to say it won't be one single bill."
Which is to say, they're not sure yet.
And fine. Fair enough. But here is why this question is so hard for them to answer.
It shouldn't be a hard question to answer. It's the most obvious simple question in the whole debate.
But I've read a number of the Republican replacement plans that have come around.
All of them will lead to more Americans without health insurance coverage, much higher deductibles, or both.
And that’s because the Republican vision on health care is not to have more people covered with more generous insurance.
Don't take it from me. Phil Klein -- no relation -- is a conservative health wonk and writer who has literally written the book on Republican healthcare plans.
And he wrote recently that Republicans “are having a tough time stating a simple truth," which goes something like this:
‘We don't believe'—"we" here being Republicans— 'We don't believe that it is the job of the federal government to guarantee that everybody has health insurance.’"
Klein also says the Republican Obamacare replacements will lead to cheaper plans that carry higher deductibles.
So, just to recap. At the core of Republican ideology is that:
One. Not as many people should be covered by the government.
And two, that they should deregulate insurance, so that insurance can have higher deductibles.
Does that sound popular to you?
Does it sound like it fulfills any of these promises?
Donald Trump likes to say that he's going to repeal and replace Obamacare with, "...something terrific."
"It's gotta go. Repeal and replace with something terrific."
Here's the hard truth about health care policy.
There is nothing purely terrific sitting around out there.
What you could do—what you really could do—is repeal Obamacare and replace it with something that makes a very different set of painful trade-offs.
The problem is Republicans are afraid to say which tradeoffs they want to make because those trade-offs aren’t actually that popular.
The GOP's real problems with Obamacare are not how many people it covers or how high the deductibles are.
Their problem with Obamacare is about its taxes, about its regulations, and about its expansion of government programs.
That is not what the public's problems are. It's not even what Trump's voters are upset about.
The Kaiser Family Foundation recently polled Trump voters on the Affordable Care Act.
And, you know what? They like the stuff congressional Republicans hate.
The medicaid expansion? Popular among Trump voters.
Taxing rich people to pay for poor people's health care? Popular among Trump voters.
Limiting out-of-pocket costs? Popular among Trump voters.
Republicans have spent years now trying to destroy Obamacare.
And to do that, they have been willing to make whatever argument is politically convenient at that moment.
What they have not done is build any support for what they want to do. They haven't even figured out what they want to do among themselves.
And, so now they're in a tight spot.
They’ve made voters think that they’re going to replace Obamacare with that voters like more, something that covers more people,
that gives better insurance at a lower cost.
And they’re not.
And what happens when voters find that out?