As Trump Backs ACA Lawsuit, Conservatives Switch Focus to Anti-Medicare-for-All

Opinions on the Right’s Focus on Being Anti-Medicare-For All

The Trump administration is backing a lawsuit that would make the ACA illegal. This would for example make the ACA’s cost assistance and pre-existing protections illegal. That is not popular.

Given that repealing the good parts of the ACA isn’t popular, the right has somewhat shifted its message away from the ACA and toward being against Medicare-for-All.

You can see many examples of this stance on the official White House twitter page for example. In this Tweet thread they essentially say [paraphrasing] 1. ObamaCare isn’t the answer, 2. we should replace it, but 3. not with Medicare for all.

This on one hand makes sense, as it is easier to explain why people should be anti-“socialism” than it is to explain why the people should support losing pre-existing conditions protections (as remember, the mandate to get insurance or pay a fee is already gone, so basically only the good parts of the ACA are left).

However, this doesn’t make sense on the other hand as there is no GOP repeal and replace bill ready to pass, the last one proposed couldn’t pass, and Medicare is actually rather popular.

So the challenge is the right has to explain to people who expanding the popular Medicare program to everyone is a bad idea, while explaining why taking away the popular provisions of the ACA is a good idea.

The main problem is that attacking Medicare-for-All without attacking Medicare is a complex task. You can say “it takes away choice”… but then we have to ask, well, why do seniors like Medicare so much if this is a problem?

You can say “but it costs too much,” but then we can ask, “well, how come then Medicare is working so well if we can’t afford it?”

Essentially, because Medicare is so successful, and the right is arguing ObamaCare isn’t, it is then hard to pivot that into “but also, expanding Medicare is very bad.”

So, in simple terms, it is not an easy fight I wouldn’t think.

“Medicare for All” is what Democrats call their new plan. Unlike Obamacare, it doesn’t pretend to give you options or choice in your healthcare. It is a proposal to end private insurance entirely and force nearly 180 million Americans onto government-run plans.

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) April 11, 2019