The GOP is changing its tune on the repeal of Obamacare

When Donald Trump was elected president, Republicans seemed to have finally gotten the chance to do just that. Trump, House Speaker Paul Ryan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and numerous Republican lawmakers quickly pledged that a repeal and replacement of Obamacare was on the horizon.

Recently, however, there seems to have been a tonal shift in the way GOP lawmakers are addressing their approach to the law. Instead of leaning on the "repeal and replace" terminology, Republicans have begun to say they are "repairing" the ACA, a softening in their rhetoric.

Repair, not repeal

An increasing number of House Republicans have shifted to the "repair" terminology when referring to the Obamacare issue.

"I think it is more accurate to say repair Obamacare because, for example, in the reconciliation procedure that we have in the Senate, we can't repeal all of Obamacare," Sen. Lamar Alexander, the chair of the Senate Health Committee, said last week.

Also last week, Sen. Orrin Hatch, the head of the Senate Finance Committee, told CNN that the GOP wanted to "try and repair the law."

There may also be a source for the change. Bloomberg reported that conservative pollster Frank Luntz told Republicans at a summit in Philadelphia that the "repair" language was more amenable to Americans and to use it instead of "repeal and replace."

Ryan told Fox News, however, that repair still meant repeal and replace.

"To repair [the] American healthcare system, you have to repeal and replace this law, and that's what we're doing," he said in an interview with "Fox & Friends."

A changing timeline

Along with the change in rhetoric, however, the timeline for any proposed changes is also being slowly extended.

Initially, indications from the GOP were that the repeal would come swiftly. Both Ryan and McConnell wanted to repeal the law within Trump's first 100 days and replace it soon after.

Trump, for his part, was adamant about swift action. During the transition, Trump said he wanted an Obamacare replacement done within weeks and derided a plan to pass a bill that would delay the repeal for a few years while the replacement was crafted.

This timeline has been extended, however, with Ryan shifting the goal posts back to the end of 2017.

"We are going to be done with legislating, with respect to Obamacare and healthcare, at the end of this year," Ryan said at a press conference on Tuesday.

In an interview with Fox News host Bill O'Reilly that aired Sunday, Trump said the Obamacare replacement was "in the process and maybe it'll take till sometime into next year."

Republicans lawmakers have not reached a consensus on a timeline, with the leadership still touting a quick process but lower-level GOP members expressing doubt over the ability to make such a large change so swiftly.

The reason behind the shift

Numerous reasons could help explain Republican's change in tone and timing.

Many parts of Obamacare, for example, are still incredibly popular. Provisions such as the ability for children to stay on their parents' plan until they turn 26 and the inability of insurers to deny coverage based on preexisting conditions are popular with an overwhelming majority of Americans.

The broader law is also gaining in popularity, with three recent polls showing more Americans in favor of the ACA than against it, with record-high approval in some polls.

Additionally, Democrats have frequently been touting the over 20 million people who have gained access to health coverage through the law. Concern over the possibility of large losses in coverage has hounded Republicans in recent weeks to the point in which Trump promised in an interview with ABC that the new plan would cover "everyone."

Thus, the Republicans may be attempting to pivot the messaging away from a blatant repeal to a softer tone. While the plan has always been to replace the law, co-opting the popular parts into their message and pointing out the deficiencies at the same time seems to be a new part of their strategy.

The shift may also be an attempt to appease insurers, which are increasingly getting concerned about the viability of the individual health-insurance markets. A large number of insurers said they may roll back their exposure to the individual market given the rhetoric from Republicans.

In the meantime, it appears that the Trump administration has done all it can to undercut the existing structure of the law. Data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on Friday showed that enrollment for the federal exchanges through Healthcare.gov declined by 400,000 from the year before.

The drop came after a sharp fall-off in enrollment following Trump's inauguration as the administration significantly decreased the amount of advertising and promotion of the exchanges. Before Trump's inauguration, 800,000 Americans were enrolling each week, but that dropped to 200,000 a week after his inauguration.