Amazingly, trying to deal with the reality of Donald Trump is forcing Obamacare repeal off the campaign trail for Republicans, with some even—gasp—bucking leadership and opposing repeal. Okay, so it's not just Trump accounting for this shift in focus—it's just reality in general. Including the fact that Republicans are simply incapable of coming up with an alternative.
"Unless there is a bipartisan solution to fix the law, I don't think we should be taking symbolic votes," to repeal it, said Rep. Bob Dold of Illinois, who is casting himself as a bipartisan voice in Congress as he fights to hang on to one of the most competitive districts in the country. […]
The Republican Senate candidates — with the exception of Sen. John McCain in Arizona — haven't made the health law an overarching theme this year, even though many of them won their last race in 2010 railing against the law that was only a few months old at the time.
Most surprising, Dold was one of three House Republicans—along with Reps. John Katko of New York and Bruce Poliquin of Maine — to openly flout GOP orthodoxy by voting against the law’s repeal in January 2015. Earlier this year, Dold and Katko also voted against repealing huge portions of the law as part of a budget bill. […]
"When I ran, I said I'm not going to vote for repeal of Obamacare unless there is a replacement or repeal and replace," said Katko, another freshman Republican whose seat in upstate New York Democrats hope to pick up this fall. "There wasn't [a replacement] and I'm not going to beat my head."
Not that Katko is abandoning his party. No, he's one of the GOP fabulists. "What's nice," he says, “is it looks like there is a replacement on the horizon with the new proposals from [House Speaker Paul] Ryan." Hahahahahahaha! That's just so cute. But it does reflect that reality thing again. The sky didn't fall with Obamacare. It didn't kill jobs. Millions of people now have affordable health insurance and have gotten used to having that insurance. Taking it away just isn't going to work.