With all the hand-wringing over the GOP’s prospects in 2018, and the fate of healthcare reform it looks like the Democrats may well be blinking first

We made a mistake, the Democrats did, that we had hearings, which the Republicans didn’t. We had a bunch of hearings. We had Republican amendments added to the bill, but still we made a greater mistake because when we took it to the floor for a vote we did it with just Democratic votes. I’m going to disappoint a lot of you, this is kind of how I roll a lot of you want me to say yes, and I would say if a single-payer came up to a vote right now I would not vote for it and here’s why. We have a huge debt. And we are looking down the barrel of a demographic bubble in Medicare as it is. My generation, there’s a bunch of us, I’m 63, I’ll be on Medicare in a couple of years. It’s already going to be a struggle for our country to keep up with the health care costs of the baby boom generation and so going to a single-payer system right now I don’t think is realistic and I don’t think it would be good for our debt. I think there are some steps that we would have to take for that to ever be a possibility. One is we are going to have to figure out the debt because with every rise of interest rate points it’s, you have no idea how hard it’s going to be for our government to function for the things you take for granted to actually come to pass if the interest rates go up four or five points. Because the interest on the debt will swallow things that you care about very much. So now having said that there are some things I would support down that path. For example, if the republicans, and I won’t go in to trump care right now or Obamacare right now because every town hall I’ve gotten a question on it so I’ll wait for that question, but in the single-payer space let’s say that there is a county in Missouri that has only one insurance company on the exchange. I want everybody to have a choice that needs to buy someplace that doesn’t get insurance at work and is not on Medicare or VA benefits or Medicaid and so if somebody doesn’t have a choice I would like to see a plan where they could buy in to either Medicaid or Medicare to provide a choice to them in those counties where there’s only one company on the exchange. I think that would be a great idea but that would require not higher taxes but that would require premium payments by the end of individuals who wanted to do that.

–Sen McCaskil (D-MO) via Townhall

I don’t for one moment believe she has seen the light when it comes to health care. What I do believe is that she has seen her poll numbers and realized that her seat in the senate is about to be pulled out from under her and she is saying anything to defuse the threat. If you note what she volunteers on, the problem with counties having 1 or 0 Obamacare exchanges, trying to get Medicare expansion when the current Medicare system is still a ticking and that single payer is a non starter, amazing what a little pressure can do to a career politician.

What’s even more important is if the GOP in the house or the Senate can force the issue to votes, it can and will be the tool to destroy Democrats in districts that are losing their Obamacare providers. They will have no choice but to side with the Republican plan or explain why they let their clients lose their healthcare patronage. Remember the Democrats vote Democrat to get things from the government. Overwhelmingly they will be the group feeling Obamacare’s problems, those 19 million people that never wanted it and resent it are there to bring to the fold.

So Heads they lose elections Tails they break ranks. Either way, conservatives win.