They can't repeal ObamaCare without huge backlash. There's zero way to do the conservative way of ObamaCare without spending a lot of the same amount of money to do the same thing.
They could blame Obama and Hillary.
They could try. It won't fly. Why? Big Pharma won't let it, for one. They got huge benefits from the deal that Obama struck with them to get support for the law. Upending the law and creating uncertainty for the insurance market is not something these people will tolerate - and they are extremely well heeled and connected in Washington.
Second, look at
this map. Pennsylvania, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, Arkansas, Kentucky, West Virginia all have Medicare expansions that could go poof. Their rural pro-Trump communities are poor - and they vote Republican.
Were the Midwest to lose their Medicare expansion, their communities would probably not ... take it well. Or at least, they would start revisiting their opposition to the Democratic Party before long.
There's also the whole myriad web of benefits, like kids staying on their parents' health insurance until age 26, and so on. The kids may not vote Republican, but their parents do. And if Mommy and Daddy get socked with a huge healthcare bill because the little sprog got a health scare, Mommy and Daddy who voted for Trump might revisit the idea.
So, Tom Price is the opening move by Trump to negotiate a deal. The end deal will retain ObamaCare more or less, with some reforms. Mostly healthcare costs leveling and expanding the power of the states to negotiate their Medicare expansion with the Feds.
Every major benefits expansion in this country has taken, minimum, decades to even talk about reform, let alone repeal. This is why 2012 was the key year to repeal the law. You needed to do it while it was still an idea in most people's minds.
Bottom line, the law will stay on the books, it will not be weakened substantially, and the GOP will become the party that covertly supports ObamaCare to save their electoral hides.
