Why the Repugs failed

From Nate Silver:

...Health care reform was never going to be easy for Republicans. About two-thirds of Americans are happy with their current health care coverage, so they’re inherently nervous about changes to the system. But the GOP chose a course that was massively disruptive — under BCRA, 22 million people would have become uninsured within 10 years — in a way that was out of all proportion to the narrow mandate that President Trump and Republicans received last year.

It’s worth bearing in mind that Trump lost the popular vote and won the decisive state in the Electoral College, Wisconsin, by less than 1 percentage point. He’s also historically unpopular for this stage of his term, with a 38 percent or 39 percent approval rating. Meanwhile, Republicans lost seats in both the House and the Senate last year, and Republicans are in a significant deficit with Democrats in voter preferences for control of the next Congress. Special election results so far also suggest a potential backlash against Trump and Republicans, with Democrats having run well ahead of how they typically perform in those districts.

Nor were AHCA and BCRA the sorts of policies that Trump had promised to voters. Instead, Trump had pledged to protect Medicaid and to replace Obamacare with “something terrific” that provided more coverage at a cheaper price.

It’s not a surprise, therefore, that AHCA and BCRA were massively unpopular. The five most recent polls on BCRA had shown an average of just 24 percent of voters in favor of the measures but 53 percent opposed, the sort of lopsided numbers that are rare in this highly partisan era...