Health Care Is An Important Issue In This Election

When the Republicans passed their tax reform a few months ago, they were sure they had fooled the public and could coast to victory in the 2018 election by boasting about that tax cuts. They were wrong. The public realized it was just a massive cut for the rich, and the plan has never been popular enough to brag about. That's why you don't hear any Republicans running for office talking about it.

A much bigger issue in this election is health care -- and that is an issue that the Republicans find themselves on the wrong side of. They tried to abolish Obamacare without having anything to replace it. And now they are lying about that on the campaign trail.

Almost every GOP candidate is now telling the voters that they support allowing people with pre-existing conditions to buy health insurance. They don't. They did introduce a rather pathetic "pre-existing conditions bill", but it was far from what Obamacare guarantees. Their bill would make insurance companies offer insurance to those with pre-existing conditions -- but it would allow companies to charge much more for those policies, or refuse to cover the pre-existing condition in the policy offered. Their bill was so inadequate that they finally withdrew it.

What the public wants is not what Republicans want. The public wants those with pre-existing conditions to be offered policies they can afford (and covers their condition). They want all citizens covered by insurance. And they want insurance and health care costs to be controlled. Note that no Republican is supporting those things.

The charts above are from a recent Kaiser Family Foundation Poll -- done between September 19th and October 2nd of a national sample of 1,201 adults, with a 3 point margin of error.