Republicans have a problem with their voters, because their voters want Medicare for All, just like Democrats do.
A new poll shows that Medicare for All is a very popular policy for whichever party chooses to get behind it -- even with Republican voters:
More than half of Republicans in a new American Barometer poll say they support "Medicare for all," also known as a single-payer health-care system.
The survey, conducted by Hill.TV and the HarrisX polling company, found that 52 percent of Republicans polled said they supported the option, while 48 percent said they opposed it.
Twenty-five percent said they "strongly" supported "Medicare for all," while 27 percent said they "somewhat" supported it.
Twenty-two percent said they "somewhat" opposed the idea, while 26 percent said they "strongly" opposed it.
The poll comes as Democrats aim to make health care, along with "Medicare for all," a central campaign issue.
Republican leaders, including President Trump, have slammed the idea, saying it would ultimately fail if it were put into action.
The poll was conducted October 19 to 20 with 1000 registered voters; the margin of error is 3.1 percentage points.
That's kind of a problem, since Republicans have done everything they can to make sure healthcare is only available to the well-to-do, as they've undermined the Affordable Care Act at every turn and tried to gut its premium supports.
They thought they could trick their fatuous followers into being against anything they tried to demonize, including those voters' own prospects for healthcare.
But it seems that even Republican voters who are willing to kill their own benefits aren't a majority.
Hence the recent outright lies from Trump that he and Republicans are the ones who are going to protect Medicare while Democrats will destroy it. Could anyone actually believe that after Mitch McConnell said flat out that his party is going to have to cut Social Security and Medicare now that the Trump tax cuts have sent budget deficits soaring?
Apparently not even Republican voters are buying it:
A Morning Consult survey released last week found that 52 percent of voters whose top issues are Medicare and Social Security said they would vote for a Democrat in the midterms.
Reid Wilson, campaign reporter for The Hill, told Hill.TV's Joe Concha that Republicans have yet to find their messaging on the issue.
"This is a debate that has only just started, and there are a lot of Republicans right now who are trying to figure out ways to talk about 'Medicare for all' in ways that will bring that number down, and bring the overall number down," Wilson said on "What America's Thinking."
"Republicans are only beginning to think about how to message this. So this is not baked in at all. This is a debate that plays out over the long term," he added.
Sounds like it's going to take a lot of "messaging" to turn completely around everything they've been saying on the topic for, like, forever.