It’s no secret that Republicans out-poll Democrats on almost all the major issues that the American public care about, most especially, the economy, inflation, and immigration. Yet, somehow, the polls are deadlocked. Joe Biden’s presidency was perhaps the worst in the history of our nation, and, yet, Donald Trump cannot top 48% in the polls.
Democrats continue to out-poll Republicans on the issues of abortion and healthcare. Fortunately for Trump and the Republicans, in this election cycle, those two issues are further down the list, though abortion continues to be important for many swing voters.
On the healthcare issue, Democrats took control when Barack Obama passed his healthcare reform during his first term.
There were a lot of problems with this law, including the fact that it kept tort reform off the table. Obamacare basically was just a ruse to dramatically increase the number of people on Medicaid.
But at least the Democrats had a plan.
Before Obamacare, there were 44 million Americans uninsured, meaning that they were just a slip and fall away from financial ruin. That was a huge percentage of the population.
There was a void that the Democrats were happy to fill. Yet, all the Republicans could do was attack any plan that came before them. You never saw a coherent Republican plan to deal with the uninsured for decades, starting from when Hillary Clinton sought healthcare reform in the early 1990s.
Trump came into the office and tried to overturn Obamacare and he failed by a single vote.
Perhaps he could’ve gotten it passed if he had simply said, “We are getting rid of Obamacare, but we are replacing it with the following plan.” He had plenty of time to come up with this plan. He never did.
But what was most astonishing is that, when asked by the ABC moderators if he would overhaul Obamacare, Trump admitted that he still doesn’t have a healthcare plan. His response was “I’m not the president now.” He stated he would deal with that later. But he was the president for four years and a candidate before that. How could you not have a healthcare plan in place that you could articulate to the American people?
The lack of a plan shows indifference. The Democrats had a lousy plan, but at least it was something to talk about and it’s why they continue to win this argument. It is pure political malpractice for the Republican Party, which has many highly intelligent policy wonks, to not have a concrete, clearly crafted proposal that they can present to the media and the public.