The Democrats just handed the GOP a loaded weapon heading into November, and some Republicans still have not pulled the trigger.
A new poll from the president’s pollster, Tony Fabrizio, conducted across the 37 battleground districts rated as toss-up, lean Republican, or lean Democrat by the Cook Political Report, tells you everything you need to know. When voters in those districts learned that a Democratic candidate supported a plan that would force every American off their health coverage and would place them into a single government-run system, the Republican won by 50% to 38%. That is a rout.
Nine of 10 voters in these districts are insured. Eighty-five percent say they are satisfied with the coverage they have. More than 4 in 5 people with private insurance like their plan. These are real people who worked for their coverage, planned around it, and built their lives with it in mind. Democrats want to take all of that away and replace it with bloated, inefficient government bureaucracy in Washington.
Seniors Matter for America is already taking up the call. The organization just launched a six-figure digital ad campaign ahead of the midterm elections, making the case directly to seniors. The effort makes clear that the upcoming election is a choice between Republicans who are fighting to protect Medicare benefits, or Democrats who want to gut private healthcare, hand control of 70 million seniors’ health decisions to federal bureaucrats, and hit the middle class with the largest tax increase in American history. Republicans could be running their own versions in every competitive district in the country.
Look at what the Fabrizio Ward data shows when voters hear the details of what “Medicare for all” actually means in practice. Learning it would open a government plan to people in the country illegally, adding trillions to the national debt, dropped support for the Democrat by a net 26 points. Learning it could force hospitals and doctors’ offices to close under Medicare reimbursement rates dropped support by 22 points. Learning it means the biggest middle-class tax increase in history dropped it another 18 points. Learning it eliminates every American’s existing coverage dropped it 17 more.
These are kitchen table conversations about whether your family keeps the doctor you trust, whether your parents keep the plan they rely on, and whether your paycheck gets raided to pay for a government takeover nobody asked for.
Democrats are not hiding from this issue. Democratic members of Congress held a formal hearing on Capitol Hill to advance single-payer. Senate and House candidates from Michigan to New Hampshire are running on it openly. This is not a fringe position inside the Democratic Party anymore.
The old Democratic Party at least had the discipline to pretend during election season. They would run to the center, win enough trust to get across the finish line, and then govern as far left as they could get away with. That act is over. The Democratic Socialists of America have taken over the party, and nobody is bothering to hide it. “Medicare for all” and the total government takeover is now the stated, public, proudly held default position of the national Democratic Party, advanced in congressional hearings and plastered across campaign websites.
Republicans should be treating that as the opening it is. Every Republican in a competitive district should be constantly challenging their opponents with the same questions: Do you support “Medicare for all”? Do you support eliminating private insurance? Do you support the tax hike that pays for it? Make them answer. Make them own it.
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Stop letting Democrats dictate the terms of this election. They are on record supporting a government takeover of healthcare that voters overwhelmingly reject. Republicans need to put “Medicare for all” in every ad and every debate between now and November.
The Left has told America exactly what it plans to do. It is time to make them pay for it at the ballot box.
Sean Spicer is a senior adviser to Seniors Matter for America.