It's a political reality that Republicans have lost the messaging war on health care with the broader public. The hard-core Republican base is the only segment that is still stuck on Obamacare repeal, them and the Republican lawmakers beholden to those dead-enders who've spent a decade now building the party around it. What's more, they failed when they actually had the opportunity to do it, and that failure galvanized the electorate against them making for the wave that put Democrats back in control of the House in 2018.
With a 2020 calendar more favorable to Democrats than Republicans in the Senate, all those senators who were so rabid about repeal are now stumbling all over themselves to try to walk it back. Case in point, Arizona's Martha McSally. Back when she was in the House, in 2017, McSally was among the most rabid repealers, reportedly urging her conference to get this "fucking thing" done ahead of a vote. That was when there was barely even an inkling of what, if anything, Republicans would put forward to replace it.
Here's McSally now, in a campaign video defending the Senate seat she was appointed to. "It's not about government-run health care or about repealing Obamacare in its entirety. […] It's about bringing the cost down." Sure, Martha. When an interviewer asked her about this about face in rhetoric, she called it "fake news." She tells HuffPost about Obamacare that "We're now almost 10 years into it, so I deal with the world we're in, and so let's figure out an offramp that addresses some of the underlying issues…."
Yes, it's totally different now that two whole years have passed, now she can accept reality. Makes all the difference. That and the fact that the total destruction of the Affordable Care Act is now a very real possibility with a White House and a Trump court more than ready to do it. Now she has to pretend like she's paying attention, like she knows the issues. Like she cares and would really do something to save people's health care. Meanwhile, Republicans are still doing nothing to come up with an alternative.
There's also Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina who is up for re-election in 2020 and who is doing absolutely nothing about health care right now, even though the courts might very well abolish it. "It's gotta be replaced," he says. Then there's Georgia's Sen. David Perdue, who assures HuffPost "I was never really a repeal-and-replace guy. I wanted to fix things. […] Preexisting conditions have to continue to be solved." He also says "We have to figure out a way that people don’t lose their insurance when they lose their job, and then we have to get after the real causes of health care costs." One way to do that, of course, was to accept the ACA and actually work with Democrats to keep fixing it as needed.
That ship has sailed, and with it all pretense of Republicans actually caring whether or not all Americans have health care, much less having any kind of plan to make it happen.
Let's keep up the pressure by beefing up our nominee fund. Please give $1 to help Democrats in each of these crucial Senate races!