Three weeks before Election Day and with coronavirus infections rising, President Trump is highlighting his determination to repeal Obamacare, baffling Republican strategists who say the message undermines his reelection prospects.
On Monday, Trump reiterated plans to replace the Affordable Care Act with “much better healthcare” that would “always protect preexisting conditions.” But the president did not offer a blueprint. Republican strategists say this glaring omission is only part of the political problem that the president is creating for himself on healthcare, a critical issue for voters amid a pandemic.
Obamacare and its mandate that insurance companies cover preexisting medical conditions have grown popular with a majority of voters. So have regulations allowing parents to insure their children through age 26. Vowing to undo the law and pursuing a federal court case to invalidate it on constitutional grounds, as well as bragging about it, reinforce a key advantage for Democratic nominee Joe Biden.
“It’s a massive mistake,” said a veteran Republican strategist who advises GOP congressional candidates. “Why do we keep talking about this when we have no alternative?”
The Affordable Care Act was unpopular when President Barack Obama enacted the law more than 10 years ago. Insurance carriers canceled policies, and the Obama administration struggled to set up purchasing exchanges, driving voter dissatisfaction that fueled a Republican takeover of the House in 2010 and a GOP takeover of the Senate in 2014 — and, at least in some part, Trump’s victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016.
In midterm elections two years later, Democrats won back the House on the strength of their effort to block Trump and congressional Republicans from repealing and replacing Obamacare. Voters had come to appreciate the provisions of the law that they favored while overlooking deficiencies, such as soaring premiums and (in some states) a limited number of carriers.
Obamacare is so popular that Biden is basing his opposition to Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, on the possibility that she would rule the statute unconstitutional and erase protections for preexisting conditions. “This president wants to get rid of the Affordable Care Act,” Biden told reporters when asked to comment on Day One of Barrett’s Senate confirmation hearings. “Americans are going to lose their health insurance.”
The former vice president leads Trump nationally by 10.2 percentage points in an average of recent polls, with that lead dropping to a smaller but still significant 4.7 points in the battleground states.
In a Gallup poll conducted Sept. 30 to Oct. 1, 52% of people trusted Biden more on healthcare, compared to just 39% who trusted Trump. On a related matter, in a Pew Research Center poll conducted between Sept. 30 and Oct. 5, 57% of voters expressed confidence in Biden to “handle the public health impact” of the coronavirus, compared to just 40% who said the same about Trump. The president is undaunted.
“We will have health are which is far better than Obamacare at a far lower cost — big premium reduction,” he tweeted. “People with preexisting conditions will be protected at an even higher level than now. Highly unpopular and unfair individual mandate already terminated. You’re welcome!”
Republican insiders who have closely monitored Obamacare’s political evolution say Trump is waging a losing argument that is putting unnecessary pressure on the party’s candidates for House and Senate. Vulnerable Republican incumbents acknowledged as much earlier this month, when five of them joined with Senate Democrats to support a bill that would have halted Justice Department support for the lawsuit seeking to invalidate Obamacare.
The legislation was defeated — but not before it received affirmative votes from Republican Sens. Dan Sullivan of Alaska, Martha McSally of Arizona, Cory Gardner of Colorado, Joni Ernst of Iowa, and Susan Collins of Maine. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican who is not up for reelection this year, also backed the Democratic bill.
“Republicans can’t simply repeal Obamacare. They have to put something in its place,” a GOP pollster said. “It’s been a structural problem with the party for some time.”
