Why It Is Still Hard to Repeal Obamacare
The Republican repeal-and-replace plan for Obamacare died an unceremonious death last month when President Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan abandoned the bill minutes before a floor vote that they knew was doomed to fail.
But now, just in time for Easter, the bill has seemingly returned to life and is back under discussion on Capitol Hill. Vice President Mike Pence is shuttling once again between the White House and the clubhouse of the House Freedom Caucus, dangling a proposal to push the legislation even further to the right in order to secure the votes of the GOP’s hardest-to-please conservatives. The changes under consideration would threaten Trump’s oft-repeated promise to protect people with preexisting conditions by allowing states, under certain conditions, to gut the regulations undergirding that pledge.
Gallup reports:
Fifty-five percent of Americans now support the Affordable Care Act (ACA), a major turnaround from five months ago when 42% approved and 53% disapproved. This is the first time a majority of Americans have approved of the healthcare law, also known as Obamacare, since Gallup first asked about it in this format in November 2012.
The Kaiser Family Foundation reports:
The latest Kaiser Health Tracking Poll, conducted the week after House Republicans pulled the American Health Care Act (AHCA) from a vote, finds about two-thirds of the public (64 percent) says it is a “good thing” that Congress did not pass the bill. Majorities of Democrats (87 percent) and independents (63 percent) say it is a “good thing” the bill didn’t pass, compared to about half of Republicans (54 percent) who view it as a “bad thing.” For those who say Congress not passing the bill is a good thing, similar shares feel this way because they do not want the 2010 health care law repealed (31 percent, overall) as feel this way because while they support repeal efforts they had concerns about the AHCA (29 percent, overall).
