It’s a good message. Where was it for the past six months? Specifically, where were the people who actually did, and do, suffer under ObamaCare? It’s one thing for Trump or Ted Cruz to call it a disaster; that’s fine, but that’s partisan political blather. Where were the ads and media segments with average Americans who’ve been tossed off their plans three times in three years as insurers have left the exchanges? Where was the White House press shop on showcasing families who are now enjoying their luxe comprehensive plans with a $12,000 deductible?

I must have missed them. So did Dave Weigel of WaPo:

3. Republicans *could have* pitched their repeal bill by highlighting people whose premiums spiked, who shrunk staff, etc. — Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) July 28, 2017

5. Trump could have let the victims talk. But, no — he gave the same telepromptered speech. — Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) July 28, 2017

The most effective messaging on repeal I’ve seen over the past three months didn’t come from Trump. How could it have? Trump could scarcely explain what was in the various Republican bills apart from saying they were “terrific.” It was this piece by Mary Katharine Ham relaying her own horror story in trying to find a plan that didn’t disintegrate within a year of enrollment. She’s spent more or less every day since it was published on Twitter trying to convince liberal trolls that this actually happens to Americans under their system. It’s not right-wing propaganda. “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan” really was an egregious lie feebly told by Obama to try to obscure the fact that his pet boondoggle has winners and losers, very much by design. Yet she routinely encounters Democratic skeptics who can’t quite believe that ObamaCare doesn’t work for everyone, even though the whole point of the law was to shift wealth from the young and healthy to the old and sick.

Most people who aren’t in the individual market, which is the one most affected by ACA, have no idea what the plans look like. It is a market where the costs of the bill’s mandates are more visible, even when subsidized. When I cite exorbitant deductibles, folks tell me to suck it up and pay $3,000. I laugh at a $3,000 deductible. What in the old system was considered a very high deductible is now among the lower available, and premiums for any kind of deductible are high, even with subsidies. Many families have to hit $12,700, and they’re paying a mortgage-sized premium. For many, the purchase becomes hard to justify or supplants an actual mortgage or similar outlays… My family may be the trade-off that was worth it for you to implement ACA. And I’m actually fine with you thinking that, as long as you don’t pretend we and the rest of the people like us don’t exist. We’re probably never going to stop arguing about this, but arguing responsibly and empathetically is better.

“My family may be the trade-off that was worth it for you to implement ACA.” That’s a gut-punch to the de facto Democratic message that there are only losers, not winners, from GOP repeal efforts. How many times have you been gut-punched that way since Inauguration Day by Republican ads? Not many, I’ll bet. But then the GOP has been in a defensive crouch on health care all year. I wonder how many Americans read the screaming CBO headlines about 20 million people losing insurance under Republican proposals and knew that the vast, vast majority of those 20 millions would be “losing” their plans voluntarily, refusing to purchase coverage once the mandate disappeared? Ah well. Too late now.

Here’s the new RNC ad plus a snippet of the president telling an audience this afternoon in light of last night’s Senate implosion that it’s time to “let ObamaCare implode.” Question: Is it helpful to be pushing that point — let it burn! — when you’re busy attacking the other party for callousness at the plight of Americans worried about health care? Here’s your answer.