Don't touch my guns...or my healthcare!

The Republican Party has been synonymous with gun rights for decades and suddenly the GOP has become responsible for increasing the support for the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare.

Don't get too excited, the Republicans haven't realized the errors of their ways. They still want to repeal Obamacare, although that has more to do with repealing Obama than it does the care part.

Ever since the ACA passed, the Republicans have done all they could to block, hinder and distort the truth about the healthcare law that has had a profound impact on citizens of the United States. 

House Republicans voted over 50 times to try to dismantle the ACA, including at least six times to repeal the entire bill. Over 40 votes were held to pick apart individual pieces of the legislation.

Fast forward to 2017, when Donald Trump is sworn in as President of the United States and the Republicans took control of both the House and Senate, and now the Republicans have us right where they want us...except what they found out is their constituents aren't exactly opposed to the ACA.

Thousands upon thousands of American tax payers, both Republicans and Democrats alike, reached out to their elected officials with pleas to fix, not repeal, the Affordable Care Act.

On Thursday, The New York Times posted a story on a few of those individual Republican voters who went along with the party in its calls to repeal the law. Now, those idiots, I mean people, have changed their tune.

“As much as I was against it,” said Pennsylvania attorney Jeff Brahin, “at this point I’m against the repeal. Now that you’ve insured an additional 20 million people, you can’t just take the insurance away from these people. It’s just not the right thing to do.”

According to the New York Times, support for government supported healthcare has reached a decade high:

"After years of Tea Party demands for smaller government, Republicans are now pushing up against a growing consensus that the government should guarantee health insurance. A Pew survey in January found that 60 percent of Americans believe the federal government should be responsible for ensuring that all Americans have health coverage. That was up from 51 percent last year, and the highest in nearly a decade."

And here is a gem of a quote from one local PA business owner:

“I can’t even remember why I opposed it,” said Patrick Murphy.

I can help you remember, Mr. Murphy.

See, you are a Republican. Barack Obama is a Democrat. Your party opposed anything and everything Mr. Obama supported.

The reality is the ACA provided the Republicans with a talking point. They pushed fear and their voters accepted that as fact.

Now, the Republicans have their chance to fully repeal the law and they aren't willing to gamble their political fortunes on that talking point.

Sure, that's good for America but it isn't good for our political future.

We need the Republicans to do everything they said they'd do, from repealing the ACA to pushing Right to Work laws nationwide, to cutting welfare and Medicaid. Only then will the uninformed voter really realize how dangerous the game is being played by the Tea Party infused Republican Party.