Is Obamacare the new third rail?
Could be.
2018 was marked by the battle to preserve the ACA particularly the requirement that insurance companies cover pre-existing conditions. Whether the Republican lawsuit that aims to overturn the entire program makes it to the Supreme Court or doesn't it's going to be a major issue:
A court ruling last week putting the Affordable Care Act further in jeopardy may provide the opening Democrats have been waiting for to regain the upper hand on health care against Republicans in 2020.
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But Senate Democrats, Democratic candidates and outside groups backing them immediately jumped on the news of the federal appeals court ruling — blasting out ads and statements reminding voters of Republicans’ votes to repeal the 2010 health care law, support the lawsuit and confirm the judges who may bring about Obamacare’s demise.
“I think it’s an opportunity to reset with the new year to remind people that there’s a very real threat to tens of millions of Americans," Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) said in an interview. "We Democrats are always striving to improve the system, but, at a minimum, the American people expect us to protect what they already have."
In 2018, Democrats won the House majority and several governorships largely on a message of protecting Obamacare and its popular protections for preexisting conditions. This year continued the trend, with Kentucky’s staunchly anti-Obamacare governor, Matt Bevin, losing to Democratic now-Gov. Andy Beshear.
The landscape in 2020 may be more challenging for Democrats than it was in 2018, when Republicans had more recently voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Republicans also say they now have more ammunition to push back on Democrats’ arguments with the party’s divisions over single-payer health care, which would replace Obamacare, shaping the presidential race.
For decades the Republicans have tried to find ways to eliminate or degrade Social Security and Medicare. It has always caused a backlash. Threatening to overturn the ACA whether in the legislature or the courts will likely meet a similar fate regardless of the debate within the Democratic Party over Medicare for All. Indeed, if anything that creates a cross-pressure to protect the program from the Republicans who clearly have no plan to replace it.
People understand very well after all these years that simply telling insurance companies they have to cover pre-existing conditions without limiting how they can charge will be a disaster. Not that they really care about the pain and suffering it will cause to actual people. But they are concerned about the political pain and suffering it will cause their members.
2018 should have spooked them on this issue but they just keep pushing. They did the same with social security and Medicare. It rarely worked out well for them.
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And thank you so much for reading and supporting my work all these years. I am truly grateful. --- d
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