[LI] With the House having passed a healthcare bill, and the Senate close to passing a version, there is a lot of debate over the specifics of the bills.
Shameless Democrats like Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders portray Republicans as setting out to kill tens of thousands of Americans. In the wake of the shooting of Republican Congressmen by a Sanders-supporter spouting similar talking points, the false death claims are nothing short of incitement to violence
Republican politicians are falling all over themselves to portray the bills as repeal and replace, but the Republican effort more fairly is an attempt to alter Obamacare. The law has had almost 7 years to work its way into the fabric of the economy and health care system and to expand its reach. Understanding how politically painful true repeal will be, Republicans are shying away, as Yuval Levin correctly assesses in National Review:
The case for repeal was strongest in the three or four years between the enactment and implementation of Obamacare. As more time passes since the beginning of implementation three and a half years ago, and more people’s lives become intertwined with the program for good and bad, the case for addressing Obamacare’s immense deficiencies by repeal weakens as a practical matter in favor of a case for taking them on by alteration.
The essence of Obamacare, that government has to provide healthcare for all and that all have right to look first and foremost to government for healthcare, is so deeply entrenched at this point, that Republicans don’t have the stomach to unwind that paradigm. |