Call it Obamacare, Trumpcare or GOPcare, but Republicans now own health care.

The House Republican vote Thursday to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act means the GOP now has to answer for every problem with the health care law: the premium increases due to materialize this summer, more insurers leaving the markets, and regions where no one is willing to sell coverage at all anymore.


“Look, I’m a Republican. I accept the fact that any blame there is to receive, we will receive it — regardless of where it comes from or [how] it's attributed,” said Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas), one of the many House Republicans who appeared with President Donald Trump in the White House Rose Garden to celebrate the passage of a bill that faces uncertain prospects in the Senate.

Democrats — who were blamed for every problem in the health industry, from rising premiums to overbooked doctors' offices to long emergency room waits — couldn’t be more excited to give it to them.

“You have every provision of this bill tattooed on your forehead,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi told Republicans on the House floor shortly before Thursday’s vote. “You will glow in the dark on this one.”

Nearly two-thirds of the public says Republicans are now responsible because they have unified control of Washington, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll taken in late April.

As the House hands off the repeal effort to the Senate, there are enough bad headlines expected in the next few months to keep the blame war spinning. Insurers are just starting to roll out rate increases for 2018 — a CareFirst plan in Maryland is seeking a 59 percent hike, for instance. Some insurers are also expected to abandon the ACA exchanges: Most of the state of Iowa and the Knoxville region of Tennessee could have no insurers offering coverage next year.

Republicans are promising that their repeal plan will reduce premiums, drive down deductibles and improve competition. Trump has promised lower deductibles, and many Republican lawmakers have pledged that the plan would protect people with pre-existing conditions from losing their coverage.

It will likely take many years before the public can accurately judge whether the GOP plan — if it gets to Trump’s desk — makes good on those pledges. But in the short-term, the American public feels Republicans are responsible for the future of the Democrats’ health care law.

When an earlier version of the House bill was pulled in March and it appeared Republicans would no longer be able to fulfill their campaign pledge, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said the GOP no longer owned a piece of the law.

“The message today that is sent is: Democrats own Obamacare,” Spicer said shortly after the bill was pulled. “It’s a failing system — skyrocketing premiums and deductibles, and fewer choices. But it’s now squarely in the hands of Democrats. They own this.”

Republicans say the bad news on Obamacare rests at the feet of Democrats who passed a flawed law seven years ago — and that those problems would exist even if Hillary Clinton had won the presidency. There could be some truth to that: Premiums rose steadily during Barack Obama’s presidency.

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Democrats counter that the instability is the result of Republican repeal efforts, as well as their refusal to commit to paying insurers for a controversial subsidy program that helps low-income Obamacare enrollees with doctors’ bills. In fact, Medica — the last insurer serving most of Iowa — said the instability was to blame for its likely exit.

Insurance companies will be filing their 2018 rates and announcing plans in states throughout the spring and summer, providing grist for both parties' political arguments.

Democrats, meanwhile, are already making clear to voters that the mess belongs to the GOP.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee released digital ads attacking Republicans for their vote just hours after the House vote.

“What's most important is this bill is going to kill thousands of Americans,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), “but it will also result in a bunch of Republicans losing their seats.”