Republican voters, Trump softening anti-Obamacare stance

WASHINGTON
President-elect Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans have repeatedly pledged to repeal President Barack Obama’s signature health care law.

But a new poll suggests Republican voters may be shifting their positions from backing a complete repeal to supporting a scaling back of the law, illustrating the complexity of the task facing Republican lawmakers who have long vowed to dismantle the program.

A tracking poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation found an increase in the share of Americans who want lawmakers simply to scale back the law: 17 percent compared to 9 percent last month, as well as a decrease in the share of voters who want lawmakers to repeal the entire law, 26 percent compared to 32 percent in October.

Kaiser says the shift in attitudes is largely driven by Republicans, with a little more than half or 52 percent saying they want the Affordable Care Act to be repealed, compared to 69 percent who supported full repeal in October. At the same time, Kaiser said, there was an increase in the share of Republicans who want lawmakers to scale back what the law does, from 11 percent to 24 percent.

Trump on the campaign trail pledged to “repeal and replace” the law known as Obamacare, but suggested after a meeting with Obama that he’d consider amending the law. His Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, said on the campaign trail that she would look to fix the law, rather than scrap it.

The November Kaiser Health Tracking Poll, conducted a week after the election, provides little clarity: in addition to the 26 percent who back repealing the entire law and the 17 percent who it scaled back, 30 percent of the public want to see the law expanded and 19 percent want to see it unchanged.

eddie wrote:You realise all the bad qualities you listed, fraud, con man etc, that mostly all politicians are like that?
Not saying it's a good thing, it's just that Trump makes it more obvious, which is certainly a better thing.

eddie wrote:Yep, I can't argue with any of your post and yes, I am pretty relieved you lot were "decieved" but I kinda knew you had been and I said it the morning after the election, to Ben.
He won't do half of what he said because he will seek "experts" and he all was doing the whole time was being "outspoken" because he assumed (or knew) what people wanted.
Now he's in, I'm betting he will take it all way more seriously.

The American President wrote: Good morning. [Members of the White House Press Corps begin to rise] It's alright. Please keep your seats. Good morning.

For the last couple of months, Senator Rumson has suggested that being President of this country was, to a certain extent, about character. And although I've not been willing to engage in his attacks on me, I have been here three years and three days, and I can tell you without hesitation: Being President of this country is entirely about character.

For the record, yes, I am a card-carrying member of the ACLU, but the more important question is "Why aren't you, Bob?" Now this is an organization whose sole purpose is to defend the Bill of Rights, so it naturally begs the question, why would a senator, his party's most powerful spokesman and a candidate for President, choose to reject upholding the constitution? Now if you can answer that question, folks, then you're smarter than I am, because I didn't understand it until a few hours ago.

America isn't easy. America is advanced citizenship. You've gotta want it bad, 'cause it's gonna put up a fight. It's gonna say, "You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours." You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country cannot just be a flag. The symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Now show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms.

Then you can stand up and sing about the land of the free.

I've known Bob Rumson for years. And I've been operating under the assumption that the reason Bob devotes so much time and energy to shouting at the rain was that he simply didn't get it. Well, I was wrong. Bob's problem isn't that he doesn't get it. Bob's problem is that he can't sell it!

We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious people to solve them. And whatever your particular problem is, I promise you Bob Rumson is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things, and two things only: making you afraid of it, and telling you who's to blame for it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections. You gather a group of middle age, middle class, middle income voters who remember with longing an easier time, and you talk to them about family, and American values and character, and you wave an old photo of the President's girlfriend and you scream about patriotism. You tell them she's to blame for their lot in life.

Jules wrote:Of course he'll have to soften his stance on all those wild promises he made to the gullible masses. Most of them are not feasible. Mexico will pay for a wall?? Don't be ridiculous, Donald!!

WhoseYourWolfie wrote:

THE DUMPSTER is proving to be the perfect chameleon...

Morphing into yet another opportunist politician..
Changing his stance to suit which way the winds blow.        

eddie wrote:Well now you can understand how angry Brexit supporters are: they feel lied to and cheated out of their decision.