In 5 Days, ObamaCare Politics Will Change Forever
A RON JOHNSON QUOTE HAS EZRA KLEIN AND EVAN SOLTAS EXCITED
By Kevin Spak, Newser Staff
newser.com
Posted Dec 27, 2013 11:47 AM CST
(NEWSER) – Things will almost certainly go wrong on Jan. 1, when the health care people have been buying from ObamaCare exchanges actually kicks in. People who thought they were covered will find out they're not, or that their plan isn't what they thought it was. But it will also be the day that a "game-changing reality" dawns, write Ezra Klein and Evan Soltas at Wonkblog, and they point to this quote from staunch ObamaCare foe Sen. Ron Johnson as evidence of that:
"It’s no longer just a piece of paper that you can repeal and it goes away. There's something there. We have to recognize that reality. We have to deal with the people that are currently covered under ObamaCare."
Conservatives rhetoric has been most effective when claiming "reasonably or not, that the law was taking something away from people," Klein and Soltas explain. But in just days, around 6 million people will have coverage through ObamaCare's exchanges and Medicaid expansion. "At that point, the politics of loss aversion shift. … It will be the GOP's promises of repeal that threaten what people already have." Many Republicans realize this, and are shifting their efforts to proposing changes to the law, "rather than fantasizing about a return to a pre-health reform world." Expect the call to "repeal-and-replace" morph into a call to "criticize-and-reform." Click for their full column. |
