The health care debate is already changing for Republicans in 2014

[Geee]

Washington Examiner:

Repealing Obamacare is so 2013.

 

In the coming year, the tone and substance of the political discourse around the troubled Obamacare will shift slightly -- but notably -- as candidates face the first election cycle since the new health care law took effect and millions of people enrolled in plans through the insurance exchanges it created.

 

With President Obama's health care reforms now entrenched as law, repealing it will be highly impractical, undermining one of the Republican Party's major talking points. The debate will morph into a question of which party can better refine and rework the law, operatives in both parties predict.

 

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Democrats, having roundly foundered with messaging since the health care legislation became law in 2010, are already beginning to jockey for a patch of higher ground, portraying themselves as the only ones amenable to fixing the law.

“I think what most Americans want us to do is not repeal Obamacare, which is what our Republican colleagues are focused on, but fix it,” Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a recent televised interview. “The president is working to fix it, we are working in the Senate to fix it, we urge our Republican colleagues to join us in fixing it.”