A player takes a failed jump shot from the 3 point line and collapses to the floor. As his teammates gather around to help, the opposing team catches the rebound and has a player ball in hand standing alone at the free throw line. Democrats are the shooter at the free throw line and as Republicans are helping Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell get up from the floor, they must take this golden opportunity with no Republicans to block the shot and shoot away.

Last night 2 Republican Senators joined Senators Susan Collins and Rand Paul and lowered the boom on Republican healthcare reform by announcing their opposition to the Better Care Reconciliation Act of 2017.

In response Leader McConnell released a statement saying “Regretfully, it is now apparent that the effort to repeal and immediately replace the failure of Obamacare will not be successful,” McConnell said that “in the coming days,” the Senate would vote on “a repeal of Obamacare with a two-year delay to provide for a stable transition period to a patient-centered health care system that gives Americans access to quality, affordable care.”

In other words we Republicans have been exaggerating and outright lying about the failures of Obamacare, regretfully after years of complaining and promising a better way we don’t have an alternative plan.

The lack of support from within his own party left the majority leader with few options to make good on what has been a top Republican priority since the law was passed in 2010.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer was quick to comment on the defection of two more GOP senators, saying in a statement, “This second failure of Trump care is proof positive that the core of this bill is unworkable.” But Schumer and Democrats can’t stop there and rest on Republican dysfunction, now is the time to take the unguarded shots from the free throw line.

Democrats must aggressively start offering the fix solutions to repair Obamacare. They can’t fall into the same trap Republicans have been in for the last 7 years of criticizing but having no workable solutions. Democrats claim there are fixes to the real flaws of Obamacare, now is the time to reveal and publicize them.

With the collapse of the Better Care Act Democrats temporarily have the floor to themselves to focus the country on repair not repeal of Obamacare. Republicans are out ideas and the option that Republicans repair Obamacare won’t come easy, but Democrats can now shape the tone and focus of the debate.

The silver lining to all of this is we have a President who doesn’t have ideological dog in this debate, at the end of the day President Trump just wants a deal done. Unlike his Republican Party he is not fundamentally opposed to healthcare being a government guaranteed right, unlike the Democratic Party he fundamentally doesn’t believe that healthcare should be a government guaranteed right. He is a blank slate on the subject and will sign any healthcare law that reaches his desk.

Democrats start shooting the free throw fix shots for Obamacare. You cannot just complain about the new Republican effort to just repeal Obamacare and replace it later, you must start aggressively offering the fix solutions while criticizing Republicans repeal efforts.

You have the floor to yourselves to shoot multiple shots to fix a very fixable healthcare system that’s working for 85% of Americans. Seize this opportunity to end the debate and do what’s in the best interest of all Americans, repair Obamacare.

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