The chart that changed a political narrative.

The chart that changed a political narrative.

“If Republicans are thinking about being Johnny One Notes and talking about health care only, I think they are going to be surprised by how little traction they get,” says Steve Bell, senior director of economic policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center and former staff director of the Senate Budget Committee. “I do think the decline in health care costs blunts the Republican message.”

Now, in elections around the country, the conversation about health care economics is changing. When the Obamacare website glitches dominated headlines in the spring, it looked like the entire election would come down to Republicans' unshakable opposition to the law. Yet, Democrats have managed to use the Medicare changes called for in a budget drawn up by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., to paint GOP candidates as granny-killing extremists. "It's a hot issue," says Jeremy Funk, the communications director for Americans United for Change, a D​emocratic-leaning nonprofit. "If I was working on any Democratic campaign I would be going after the other side for four votes in a row on the Ryan budget. […] Democrats have even tried to take the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office's projections about health care spending reductions and use them to reverse the narrative that Obamacare has led to higher costs in medical care.

The remarkable declines in the growth of healthcare spending, particularly for Medicare, are upending Republicans' anti-Obamacare, deficit fetishist attacks on Democrats, allowing Democrats to turn the table on Medicare. Remember that $716 billion lie about Obamacare and Medicare? It has no resonance anymore What's the issue now? The Ryan budget, with its cuts to Medicare and other social insurance programs and its Obamacare repeal, as well as Obamacare's success in reducing the growth in healthcare spending.Add in the fact that nobody's grandma's Medicare was actually cut by Obamacare and the Republican lie becomes impossible to sustain outside of the tea party. Obamacare is not just not bankrupting the country, it's saving health care money. Which gives Democrats ample opportunity to point out how unnecessary and how destructive Republican slash and burn policies are.