The hell you say!
(Politico) Senate Democrats will never vote to repeal Obamacare. But once the deed is done, a surprising number of them say they’re open to helping Republicans replace it.
“If it makes sense, I think there’ll be a lot of Democrats who would be for it,†said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.).
As Republicans aim to make good on their years-long vow to quash Obamacare and replace it with their own health care vision, they’ll have to do something Democrats were never able to: Bring members of the opposing party on board. Enacting any substantive alternative will take at least eight Democratic votes in the Senate.
Why? Republicans can repeal it and replace it in exactly the same fashion as Democrats passed it, using parliamentary shenanigans.
Yet the GOP will have powerful leverage that Democrats lacked in 2009 – namely, a huge number of members facing reelection in hostile territory.
Twenty-five Democrats are on the ballot in 2018, including 10 in states that Donald Trump just won. The GOP is betting that many or most in the latter group will be under irresistible pressure to back an Obamacare replacement, if the alternative is leaving millions of people in the lurch without insurance.
Think those vulnerable Democrats do not understand just how toxic Ocare has been to Democrats? They can surely see that tally sheet showing how many seats at the federal, state, county, and local levels that Republicans have taken over. And these Democrats are more interested in retaining their seats and power rather than holding firm to their belief in this rat turd of a bill they voted to pass.
