In February of 2010, Democrats and Republicans were just a few steps away from reaching common ground on national healthcare reform – a story that probably sounds closer to urban myth than truth these days.
At the time, Rep. Paul Ryan sat across from then-Speaker John Boehner and then-President Barack Obama and expressed his disagreement with the Obama Administration’s fresh push for healthcare reform.
“We are all representatives of the American people,” Ryan said candidly. “We all do town hall meetings. We all talk to our constituents. And I've got to tell you, the American people are engaged. And if you think they want a government takeover of health care, I would respectfully submit you're not listening to them.”
Oh, what a difference seven years makes.
Fast forward to the present day and not only are the constituents who show up at town halls across the country singing a different tune on health care, but Paul Ryan and many other Congressional Republicans aren’t even bothering to show up at those same town halls that they once lauded as being the one true conduit to individual voters’ needs.
And while Republicans were tickled pink at the sight of hundreds of sometimes-violent Tea Partiers flooding local town halls in 2009, now that it’s their turn to be berated on stage, Congressional Republicans are learning that they really, really don’t like it.
This newfound love for Obamacare has resulted in a flurry of grassroots support for the act, mostly playing out with angry hordes of voters filling auditoriums at town halls across the nation.
Save My Care, a pro-Obamacare group that has been airing political ads across the country, captured some of these “fiery, in-your-face confrontations” for a minute-and-a-half digital spot.
In the political ad, we see angry voters nearly shouting down Republican lawmakers like Mitch McConnell, Tom Cotton, Jason Chaffetz and other members of Congress.
The ad ends with former presidential candidate and relatively-popular Republican Ohio Governor John Kasich defending parts of the act. According to Kasich, 700,000 of his constituents in Ohio now receive medical care who would otherwise not have insurance if the act never became law. “A third of whom have mental illness and need to be treated or drug treatment, which is a problem throughout the country,” Kasich told CNN. “To turn our back on them makes no sense.”
On CBS’s Face the Nation, Kasich told John Dickerson, “I don’t understand everything that is going on with these town halls, but what I think is having an impact from the standpoint of, people are watching – I don’t think they mind reform, but don’t take everything away.”
We will see if more raucous town halls bring any other Republicans to Kasich’s side.
At the time, Rep. Paul Ryan sat across from then-Speaker John Boehner and then-President Barack Obama and expressed his disagreement with the Obama Administration’s fresh push for healthcare reform.
“We are all representatives of the American people,” Ryan said candidly. “We all do town hall meetings. We all talk to our constituents. And I've got to tell you, the American people are engaged. And if you think they want a government takeover of health care, I would respectfully submit you're not listening to them.”
Oh, what a difference seven years makes.
Fast forward to the present day and not only are the constituents who show up at town halls across the country singing a different tune on health care, but Paul Ryan and many other Congressional Republicans aren’t even bothering to show up at those same town halls that they once lauded as being the one true conduit to individual voters’ needs.
And while Republicans were tickled pink at the sight of hundreds of sometimes-violent Tea Partiers flooding local town halls in 2009, now that it’s their turn to be berated on stage, Congressional Republicans are learning that they really, really don’t like it.
Obamacare Gets Revived as it Faces Sudden Death
Despite scores of Republicans – the current president included – promising voters that the party has been in the perpetual “finishing touches” of a new healthcare bill for years, it has now been more than a month into the new Republican-led administration and no such repeal has come forward – let alone a viable replacement. In the meantime, approval for Obamacare has shot up to 54% – the act’s highest approval rating on record – according to the Pew Research Center.This newfound love for Obamacare has resulted in a flurry of grassroots support for the act, mostly playing out with angry hordes of voters filling auditoriums at town halls across the nation.
Save My Care, a pro-Obamacare group that has been airing political ads across the country, captured some of these “fiery, in-your-face confrontations” for a minute-and-a-half digital spot.
In the political ad, we see angry voters nearly shouting down Republican lawmakers like Mitch McConnell, Tom Cotton, Jason Chaffetz and other members of Congress.
The ad ends with former presidential candidate and relatively-popular Republican Ohio Governor John Kasich defending parts of the act. According to Kasich, 700,000 of his constituents in Ohio now receive medical care who would otherwise not have insurance if the act never became law. “A third of whom have mental illness and need to be treated or drug treatment, which is a problem throughout the country,” Kasich told CNN. “To turn our back on them makes no sense.”
On CBS’s Face the Nation, Kasich told John Dickerson, “I don’t understand everything that is going on with these town halls, but what I think is having an impact from the standpoint of, people are watching – I don’t think they mind reform, but don’t take everything away.”
We will see if more raucous town halls bring any other Republicans to Kasich’s side.