Democrats are feeling a renewed vigor over Obamacare, whose public approval rating keeps climbing as popular vote loser Donald Trump's approval rating slides ever downward. While their prospects seem to be looking up, Republicans face a complicated and ugly future on the law—and the threats Trump keeps making to sabotage it.
President Trump is threatening to cut off federal subsidies that benefit middle class Americans who access health insurance through the Affordable Care Act—unless Senate Democrats agree to fund a security wall along the Southern border.
Congressional Republicans have little desire to prop up Obamacare. But these subsidies, or "Cost Sharing Reductions," flow to perhaps hundreds of thousands of Americans who live in districts represented by Republicans considered soft targets for the Democrats in 2018. […]
If Republicans and the Trump administration don't finance the subsidies in a spending bill that must pass by April 28 to avoid a government shutdown, the GOP could face a voter backlash as insurers cancel plans and pull out of communities.
"Republicans wanting Obamacare to collapse might be a good talking point in 2017, but it will be disastrous at the ballot box for us in 2018," a former House GOP aide said. Republicans interviewed for this story requested anonymity in order to speak candidly.
There's no question who voters would blame if Congress doesn't act to prevent this: the Republican-controlled Congress and Trump. They own it, completely.
A whopping 75 percent of people in the last Kaiser Family Foundation survey say that Trump should make the law work, and beyond that, "61 percent of the public say that because President Trump and Republicans in Congress are in control of the government, they are now responsible for any problems with the ACA moving forward."
You can bet that Republicans—even those in pink districts—are sweating that.