Jim VandeHei: Republicans Have ‘Struggled to Come to a Unified Position’ on Healthcare

‘One of the things that’s bedeviled Republicans for some time is they don’t have a plan they could unify behind that would cover everyone, that would cover preexisting conditions, would bring down your health insurance costs’

EXCERPT:

VANDEHEI: "When you talk to Republican leaders on Capitol Hill, it’s really bad. Because it’s not just the last election, it’s almost every election if you had to bet on what topic is going to be the most important topic. It’s health care because it touches everybody. One of the simple rules of politics, as you know, is when you take stuff away from people, that’s really hard in politics. When people have coverage and don’t have coverage, it’s really hard to go and justify that and explain that you’re going to have a plan in two years. One of the things that’s bedeviled Republicans for some time is they don’t have a great plan that they could unify behind that would cover everyone, that would cover preexisting conditions, would bring down your health insurance costs. They’ve struggled to come to a unified position so they end up fighting about court fights, which are basically taking away parts of ObamaCare, some of which people might not like, but some of which they do like. They like that their kids are covered. They like their preexisting conditions are covered. So I think that's the jam that Republicans feel they've been put in and they’d much rather fight about immigration, jobs, the economy, places that are much safer grounds for Republicans where they feel like they have superior policy."

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