GOP voters may not care that much about scrapping ObamaCare after all

Mitch McConnell may not pay a political price for the collapse of his health-care bill
(Image credit: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images)

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) insists he will hold (and probably lose) a vote on repealing without replacing the Affordable Care Act, the idea presumably being that after seven years of promising to scrap ObamaCare, Republican senators will be pressured to follow through.

President Trump has moved on to blaming Democrats and vowing to let ObamaCare fail, but "there is no way to spin to those who were promised that the Affordable Care Act would be repealed and replaced once Republicans held full power in Washington that what has happened is the fault of forces outside the party," says Dan Balz at The Washington Post. "It is as though Republicans unknowingly set a trap and then walked into it without having prepared escape routes." He argues that Republican voters will punish the party in 2018:

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
Explore More
Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.