Keep in mind that health care remains the top issue in most polls among both Democrats and independents. So the news on the ACA is bad news for two very distinct groups.

First, not only for Trump, but for red-state Republicans, what is the rationale for ripping up ACA when premiums are going down and competition is up in the exchanges? At some point, you wonder if Republicans will throw in the towel on repeal-and-replace and instead embrace keep-and-manage. It is especially noteworthy that the biggest drops are occurring in a number of red states. (“Average premiums for ‘silver’ plans are decreasing at least 10 percent in six states: Delaware, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Utah.”)

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Andy Slavitt, the former acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services under President Barack Obama, tells me, “President Trump wants to repeal the ACA which is bringing down the cost of health care for millions, covering tens of millions, and providing protections that hundreds of millions need if they’ve ever been sick.” He adds, “All the polls Americans want politicians to spend their effort fixing the things the ACA didn’t get right and reducing drug costs.”

Second, this is also bad news for the Medicare-for-all supporters who, like Trump, keep arguing that the ACA is unworkable. You have to go back to the debates when Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) had this to say:

I believe the best and boldest idea here is to not trash Obamacare but to do exactly what Barack Obama wanted to do from the beginning and that’s have a public option that would bring down the cost of the premium and expand the number of people covered and take on the pharmaceutical companies. That is what we should be doing instead of kicking 149 million people off their insurance in our years. And I’m tired of hearing, whenever I say these things, oh, it’s Republican talking points. You are making Republican talking points right now in this room by coming out for a plan that’s going to do that. I think there is a better way that is bold, that will cover more people, and it’s the one we should get behind.

So far, the arguments against Medicare-for-all in the Democratic primary have centered on fear of chasing away moderate voters, elimination of choice and its cost. Perhaps the new ACA data will lead to a more robust defense of Obamacare on the merits. The system, as its defenders keep saying, is far from perfect but the over-the-top attacks on any and all private health insurance does not match up with cost reductions we now see and the variety of choices available in the exchanges. Drew Altman, the president of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation observes, “The partisans are dug in on the ACA. It remains to be seen if the facts move them.”

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Defenders of the ACA were gaining steam in the Democratic primary debates before this news. They might be encouraged to make an even more aggressive argument against throwing the baby out with the bathwater. As Slavitt notes, there are a variety of Democratic plans to build on the ACA, which he argues, “Trump and Republicans resist at their peril.”

Now the question remains whether evidence of the reduced cost of ACA premiums will weigh in favor of candidates such as Klobuchar, former vice president Joe Biden and South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who all favor a public option. That may depend on how willing they are to take on the Medicare-for-all proponents and how skillfully they are able to do it.