"... GOP primary voters are not necessarily going to be thoughtful and measured in their response to someone proposing something less than all-out war against Barack Obama and everything he ever touched."

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COMMENTS:
*  Only someone with absolutely no chance (which is most of them) would verbalize that. That would entail a moderate Republican, the last of whom that has been spotted in the wild would have been John Huntsman. Beyond that, they are as extinct as the dodo.
*  Have you heard about the new Gop health plan? No one else has either.
*  A sane Republican....oh never mind....it's already a contradiction.
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What if a 2016 GOP candidate told the truth about Obamacare?
By Paul Waldman, May 7, 2015

If you’re a Republican presidential candidate, there aren’t too many ways you can distinguish yourself from your primary opponents on the issue of health care — I hate Obamacare, you hate Obamacare, we all hate Obamacare. But maybe there’s another way, for someone who has the courage to shift his rhetoric and present themselves as a bold truth-teller.

To put that in context, let’s look at some new developments on the Obamacare front.

A study just out from the Rand Corporation — not exactly a hotbed of socialist thinking — finds that after the coverage provisions in the Affordable Care Act took effect: “we estimate that 22.8 million people became newly insured and that 5.9 million lost coverage, for a net increase of 16.9 million with insurance as of February 2015.”

In addition, a new Gallup poll shows that 43 percent of Americans say they’re satisfied with the government’s work in health care, which doesn’t sound so great until you learn it’s the highest number this question has received since the organization began asking it in 2001.

We already know that all the predictions Republicans made about the ACA — a decline in health coverage, skyrocketing medical spending and premiums, massive job losses — failed to come true. One seemingly sensible response to the facts about Obamacare is to pretend they aren’t true, which is how prominent Republicans have handled things until now. After all, there hasn’t been much punishment for spreading falsehoods about the law, and the public is still woefully uninformed about it. For example, for every American who knows that the law has proven much less expensive than was originally estimated, there are eight who mistakenly believe it ended up being more expensive.

Nevertheless, the good news continues to pile up, and at least some of it may be penetrating to the public, albeit slowly (approval of the law has been ticking up of late). Which could create the opening for a Republican willing to say something different from his peers.

Let’s imagine a presidential candidate who said something like this to GOP primary voters:

“I know that just saying ‘Repeal Obamacare!’ is a good applause line. And believe me, I wish it had never passed. But we’ve had over 50 votes to repeal it in Congress, and it’s still here. Like it or not, it’s becoming entrenched. If we repealed it tomorrow, it would mean that millions of Americans would lose the coverage they’ve got. We can’t object to people losing their plans because of Obamacare, and then say it’s no big deal if a much larger number of Americans lose their coverage when we repeal the law. And Obamacare does a few things that we Republicans favor.

“So instead of just saying ‘Repeal it now!’, I’m going to give you a plan to keep the good things, ditch the bad things, and move toward a better health care system. We’ve spent the last five years banging our heads against the wall over this law, and some of my opponents think more banging is the answer. But I want to solve the problem.”

The Republican who said that would, of course, be branded a traitor by some. But he’d also get a wave of adoring press coverage, in which he’d be characterized as a straight-talking man of courage and the only one willing to have an adult conversation about health care.

The outcome of the King v. Burwell lawsuit could also help make his case. If the Supreme Court rules in Republicans’ favor, millions of Americans will lose their health coverage when subsidies are taken away, and efforts for a legislative fix are uncertain at best. The experience will make it clear even to many Republicans that “Burn it down!” isn’t always the wisest approach.

Yes, a Republican who turned his back on “repeal” to focus on “replace” would be taking a huge risk, since GOP primary voters are not necessarily going to be thoughtful and measured in their response to someone proposing something less than all-out war against Barack Obama and everything he ever touched. But it might just be crazy enough to work.
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