Obama basically embraced Romneycare and thought because it was a Repug plan to begin with that he would get bipartisan support. Fortunately ACA passed. The Repugs were pissed because they wanted to deny Obama (the first black president) anything that would make him look good. So the Repugs trashed talked ACA. Remember - death panels; 2000 pages of law; etc. They also thought they would be smart and thought that by calling ACA Obamacare that it would put a negative connotation on the Act. For some people it did. Today we call those people 'deplorables' - basically racists - that don't like Obama because he is black. Unfortunately for the Repugs - more people liked ACA than not and the negative connotation of the Obamacare - actually became a positive. In fact, President Obama actually embraced the name Obamacare. This further riled the Repugs because their plan of associating Obama with ACA backfired on them. So in order to appeal to the 'deplorables' they set out to repeal Obamacare. In fact they attempted to repeal it over 60 times. They failed. Obamacare aka ACA works. It works well. The Repugs really don't have any kind of replacement plan that would be better unless they push for a universal plan for all the people based on ACA.
So fast forward to today. They won the Nov. election. In fact they won the trifecta - the presidency, the Senate & the House. They are in control of the whole enchilada. One of the reasons they won is because they told the 'deplorables' that they would repeal and replace Obamacare (remember the negative/racist connotation they created). Now in order to keep to their promise to the 'deplorables' and save face and to start their reign off - with what they think is a positive - they set the wheels in motion to repeal and replace - OBAMACARE.
I really think - they think - if they do this - and remove the backfired positive connotation of Obamacare - they will feel that they have succeeded and kept their promise to their 'deplorable' constituency. They can go back to their districts and tell there constituency that they repealed Obamacare. In the meantime - keep ACA working in the background for a couple of years - still working as it was intended - maybe make some tweeks and rename it Trumpcare, Conservacare, Repugcare - whatever - but just make sure it is not called Obamacare anymore.
That - my friends - is what this is all about. The pet name that was given ACA. Obamacare. Remove Obama from the name and guess what - they will think they scored a big win.
There are some within the Repug Party that really want to upend ACA - because of greed of the 1%'ers and the insurance industry and bigpharma. Hopefully - there will be some within their Party that to use an expression - will let cooler heads prevail. These are like some of the Repug Governors that are urging not to upend ACA because it would have a devastating effect on their State; hospitals that are basically happy today with how ACA is working and don't want to go back to providing free emergency care and lose money; and some in Congress that know that the 10 year cost to the government of upending ACA is estimated at $10 trillion; and those same in Congress that realize the effect that repealing will have on jobs - particularly in the healthcare arena. Then you have the people that have come to rely on ACA and don't want to go back to the old system of pre-existing conditions; dollar caps; and those whose lives have been saved both physically, medically and financially.
It is really going to be interesting to see how this all plays out. A most unfortunate situation - based on racist motivations and the unwillingness to let the first black President to score a win.
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