"Morning Plum: Conventional wisdom on Obamacare is changing. Really."

Morning Plum: Conventional wisdom on Obamacare is changing. Really.

By Greg Sargent at the Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/05/28/morning-plum-conventional-wisdom-on-obamacare-is-changing-really/

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Today’s Wall Street Journal features two pieces that portray the politics of Obamacare in a more nuanced way than the cartoonish political narrative favored by Republicans — and some “neutral” commentators — has allowed. The first reports that multiple Dem candidates are now more confident in trumpeting the law’s benefits and attacking Republicans over the real-world consequences of repeal.

The second piece reports that Republicans are slowly evolving in their approach to the politics of the law, opting for a more ”nuanced” strategy that doesn’t place repeal front and center anymore. As GOP pollster Bill McInturff puts it, Republicans will need to ”have a bill of particulars about what hasn’t worked.”

That is a polite way of saying that the GOP strategy to date — vow to repeal Obamacare and mumble platitudes about replacing it with something or other that does all the things in it that people like – is a bust.

At this point it is broadly accepted that repeal is unpopular, that this fact can co-exist with disapproval of the law, and that this puts some pressure on Republicans to offer their own health reform agenda and/or to pay lip service to the law’s popular goals. However, it is not yet broadly acknowledged that multiple Republican candidates who are trying to deal with this problem have stumbled into a series of equivocations, evasions, and outright policy gibberish that amounts to a story all its own.




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