The War on Obamacare Is Over — and Republicans Lost

Republicans shut down the government to fight a policy their voters depend on

There is a bizarre split-screen happening in American politics. On one side, you have the President deploying the National Guard to American cities to quell largely made-up unrest, masked ICE agents wreaking havoc and shooting pepper balls at priests, and threats to jail the Governor of Illinois and the Mayor of Chicago for opposing the President.

On the other side, you have a government shutdown in Washington that could very well be from the Obama era. Republicans and Democrats are fighting over extending tax credits for the Affordable Care Act. I spent my first 18 months in the White House trying to pass that bill. I spent the next five years trying to stop Republicans from repealing it. The crux of Obama’s reelection campaign was Obamacare.

Once Trump was elected, one of the organizing principles of Pod Save America was stopping the Republican majority from repealing the Affordable Care Act.

It’s been 15 years since Obamacare became law. One thing that’s clear after the first week and a half of this shutdown is that Republicans have lost the argument over Obamacare — and they’re the only ones who don’t realize it.

This is why their shutdown strategy is doomed to fail. They will either agree to extend the tax credits, or they will pay a very steep price in the midterms. There are no other options.

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Obamacare Has Bipartisan Support Now

Through the 70-some repeal votes, the two Supreme Court cases, and the reelection campaign, the hope was that if the Affordable Care Act could hang around long enough, it would become a permanent part of the social safety net — that eventually it would help enough people to make repeal akin to political suicide.