The Obama White House has been emboldened by the good news on the ACA and is calling the Republican plan to repeal Obamacare a political loser.
Video of White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer on Face The Nation:
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Transcript:
BOB SCHIEFFER: What about the politics of this? Some people are saying that this may, in fact, wind up with a Republican-controlled Senate. And it will be the cause of Obamacare. It is still by every poll still unpopular.
DAN PFEIFFER: Well, first I’d say we believe we’re going to keep the Senate. But look, health care is a divisive issue. It’s been that way for a very long time. That’s where it took 15 years to get health reform passed. I do think that the Republican argument for repeal is a political loser. What they’re arguing now is that the seven million people who signed up through the exchanges and the millions more who got it from Medicaid and other ways, they’re going to take health care away from all of those people.
And then what they’re going to do for the 85% of Americans who had health care before the Affordable Care Act is that they’re going to take away their protections. Because embedded in the Affordable Care Act is the patient’s bill of rights. So we’ll go back to the days where women paid more than men for the same health care, seniors paid more for prescription drugs, and insurance companies had all the power. That’s not a good argument to make.
Democrats far and wide should be explaining what the Republican plan to repeal Obamacare would mean for every single American. In the simplest terms, Republicans want to revert back to a system where insurance companies can drop a person when they get sick, and people with pre-existing conditions can’t get coverage.
As more people sign up for the ACA, the more the debate is tilting towards the Democrats. Republicans are playing a losing hand if they think that the millions of Americans are going to support taking away their own healthcare. What Republicans don’t get is that people don’t want to go back to the old system, but all the GOP continues to offer is a return to the way things were before.
Their argument is definitely a political loser, but Democrats will only win if they stand up and tell voters what will really happen if the ACA is repealed.
The White House is on the offensive, and determined to make the Republicans pay for campaigning on repealing Obamacare.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
