Polls have unearthed voter confusion over whether the Affordable Care Act and "Obamacare" are the same thing. They are.

The hotly debated health care law, passed early in former President Barack Obama's tenure, is formally named "The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act." Republican opponents, whether responding to or stoking criticism of the law's less popular aspects, derisively saddled it with the president's name, although some Democrats, including Obama himself, adopted the "Obamacare" label as their own.

Clearly not everyone knows this, but you know who surely does? U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy.

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The Louisiana senator, a physician with seats on the Finance and Health Education Labor & Pensions committees, is expected to play a major role in whatever revamp Republicans come up with now that they control both Congress and the White House. As has been amply documented, the political tide has turned since repeal became a real possibility, and politicians who once bashed the law with abandon are now squirming under pressure from constituents who rightly fear losing access to health care.

According to the Washington Post, Cassidy is trying a novel way to manage the conflicting pressures to get rid of the what people don't like and keep what they do, all without collapsing the underlying financial structure that ties these aspects together. He's taking that voter confusion and running with it.

According to the Post, Cassidy told reporters that in many voters' minds, “Obamacare” refers to the individual mandate and other parts of the law that Republicans oppose, and the "Affordable Care Act" includes those, such as a ban on discrimination against those with pre-existing conditions, that the GOP favors keeping.

“The Affordable Care Act is, if you will, a different animal, and Obamacare is a different subset of it,” Cassidy said. “Complete repeal is not what President Trump ran on. President Trump ran on everyone having coverage, caring for those with preexisting conditions without mandates, at a lower cost.”

That's some kind of cynical sleight of hand there.

For one thing, Cassidy's wrong that candidate Donald Trump didn't promise to repeal. He did. Just Google "Trump," "Obamacare," and "disaster" and see for yourself.

And his underlying suggestion that the GOP was on board with the popular stuff all along is also misleading. It wasn't.

Every single Republican in Congress at the time it became law opposed Obamacare, and every single Republican opposed the Affordable Care Act too. And that would include a guy who served in the U.S. House at the time: Bill Cassidy.