EDITORIAL: Voters didn’t give Republicans a mandate to trash Obamacare

Dec. 20--Election Day 2016 was a day of contradictions.

Republican Donald Trump won the presidency even as Democrat Hillary Clinton won more votes. And while Trump claimed victory, Democrats picked up a small number of seats in Congress.

"[T]his could indeed be as consequential a 'change' election as the United States has had since 1860," James Fallows wrote recently in The Atlantic. "But nothing about the voting patterns suggests that much of the population intended upheaval on this scale."

There's also contradiction wrapped up in voter attitudes toward the Affordable Care Act, the 2010 health care reform law that Trump and fellow Republicans have consistently promised to overturn.

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On a day when Trump prevailed, his supporters weren't nearly as certain as the candidate that they wanted to see the Affordable Care Act disappear. So, as Republicans prepare to take control of all three branches of the federal government next month, they should be mindful that they don't enjoy a mandate to trash the law.

The November 2016 Kaiser Health Tracking Poll, which has recorded Americans' opinions on the Affordable Care Act since its inception, found that only half of Trump voters supported repealing the law and that the percentage of Republicans who favor full repeal has dropped in recent months. Another 29 percent of Trump voters said they preferred to see policymakers scale back what the law does. Fifteen percent said they either preferred to see the law implemented as written or expanded in scope. (Overall, just 26 percent of voters surveyed favored an Obamacare repeal; 49 percent favored either expanding it or implementing it as it's written.)

In Maine, Trump managed to perform well enough to earn one of the state's four electoral votes. But even as he outperformed other recent Republican nominees, tens of thousands of voters sent the message on Nov. 8 that they wanted Maine to take advantage of the Affordable Care Act's full benefits.

On Election Day alone, more than 65,000 voters signed petitions in support of placing an initiative on the ballot that would expand Medicaid eligibility in Maine -- an Obamacare provision that would provide coverage to 75,000 low-income adults mostly at federal expense.

The signatures -- more than enough to place the question on the ballot if the secretary of state's office finds them valid -- came from every county, and there are examples of substantial numbers coming from towns Trump carried decisively. Judging by the numbers, plenty of Trump voters signed on.

In Vienna, for example, Trump beat Clinton 195-157. Meanwhile, 196 voters signed their names to the Medicaid expansion petitions. In Sabattus, Trump captured more than 1,700 votes to Clinton's 865. But signature collectors recorded 937 signatures at the polls in favor of placing a Medicaid expansion question on an upcoming ballot.

Across the country, many who support the Affordable Care Act and directly benefit from it voted for Trump.

Kentucky and West Virginia saw the largest increases in health coverage in the nation, thanks to the Affordable Care Act. Both states also went decisively for Trump.

In Whitley County, Kentucky, Kathy Oller has spent the last few years enrolling people in Affordable Care Act coverage plans. "We all need it," Oller said of Obamacare in a recent Vox.com article. "You can't get rid of it."

Oller voted for Trump, as did 82 percent of Whitley County voters. As reporter Sarah Kliff interviewed voters there, she wrote, "I kept hearing informed voters, who had watched the election closely, say they did hear the promise of repeal but simply felt Trump couldn't repeal a law that had done so much good for them," she wrote.

"I guess I thought that, you know, he would not do this, he would not take health insurance away knowing it would affect so many people's lives," Debbie Mills, a Whitley County Trump voter and Obamacare enrollee, told Kliff. "I mean, what are you to do then if you cannot pay for insurance?"

When Republicans assume a governing majority next month, they'll want to move quickly on a number of initiatives. If the national polling and the tales of Maine and Kentucky show anything, it's that voters didn't give them license to destroy a law that's helping millions of people.

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(c)2016 the Bangor Daily News (Bangor, Maine)

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