Politico is reporting that Democrats see Obamacare as an obstacle during this year’s midterm election season, prompting operatives to devise strategies to weaken the GOP’s advantage.
The effort involves telling voters that the Republican Party would exacerbate the problem, including raising prescription drug prices, empowering insurance companies and even endangering victims of domestic violence, the report states.
The plan, which was outlined in a memo obtained by the site, “recognizes the unpopularity of the Affordable Care Act,” President Barack Obama‘s signature legislation. But polling data showing that most voters would rather repair the flawed law is a major underpinning of Democratic strategy, which also relies on voter frustration with the GOP’s incessant calls to repeal Obamacare.
Republicans, however, balked at the idea that voters are willing to overlook problems associated with the health care law and its boggled rollout, saying the writing’s on the wall and will be difficult for Democrats to erase.
But even as conservatives pour millions into anti-Obamacare ads, Democrats are countering with their own and reversing the GOP’s talking points, including arguing that the party has wasted too much time on repeal votes and wants to return to a time when insurance companies took advantage of customers. Some Democratic strategists are also sounding the alarm that Republicans will extract essential parts of Medicare.
Still, in spite of last week’s announcement that 3.3 million people have enrolled in Obamacare through its marketplaces, some Democratic operatives complain privately that the law “remains an albatross,” the article says.
“The best way to push back on the attacks we know Republicans will launch over health care is to be on offense about what your opponent would do to health care while highlighting your commitment to fixing and improving the law,” Jesse Ferguson, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s deputy executive director, wrote in the memo, according to Politico.
