Obamcare is SO bad and SO unpopular and SO epic fail, and that is why the American people have been looking to the GOP all these years to save them from the awful thing. And now Senate Republicans have a plan to do just that -- with a bill to protect Obamacare:

The legislation, offered by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), one of the most politically vulnerable Senate incumbents in 2016, would maintain the federal HealthCare.gov subsidies at stake in King v. Burwell through the end of August 2017.

Oh you mean the senator whose biggest fear, if the Supreme Court does exactly what Republicans have been asking it to do and strikes down the subsidies provisions in Obamacare, is that he'll have to listen to people's "heart-wrenching" sob stories about how losing the health coverage they only have because of Obamacare REALLY SUCKS? Yeah, that guy.

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Maybe someone on Johnson's staff showed him the video of the tea party Republican who's thinking he should vote for Hillary Clinton because he really does not want to lose this nice affordable health insurance he has now, which every single Republican running for president has promised to take away from him, for freedom. What if there are other Americans who are thinking the same thing? If the Court agrees with Republicans and the whackadoodle plaintiffs they dug up from the comments section of the wingnut-o-sphere that the federal subsidies are indeed UNLEGAL, those millions of people who would lose their insurance might blame Republicans -- maybe because of how they've tried to murder Obamacare almost 60 times? -- and that, Johnson and his fellow Republicans are slowly figuring out, could be a real bad thing for their party. REAL bad. Sure, they were hoping they could just blame Obama for failing to have a back-up plan, but that might not be going so well, so the new plan is for Republicans to try to protect the subsidies in Obamacare, just in case. Not that Johnson's admitting that's what he and all his Republican co-sponsors of the bill are trying to do:

"This bill is a first step toward reversing the damage that Obamacare has inflicted on the American health care system," Johnson said.

Well, no. Not really. Extending one of the most important parts of Obamacare is not the same as undoing Obamacare. Even though Johnson's tossed some of that in his bill too, for optics:

The Johnson bill also contains sweeteners for conservatives which are non-starters for Democrats — it would repeal Obamacare's individual mandate and employer mandate, and remove federal rules requiring that insurance plans cover a minimum package of "essential health benefits."

Sure, Senate Democrats are probably happy to help Republicans save face and undo certain parts of the Affordable Care Act. Or, we are guesstimating, Senate Democrats will instead laugh their collective asses off and tell Republicans "Nope! Sorry not sorry! You made this mess, now you get to take credit for it."

Careful what you wish for, Republicans. Could turn out to be a REAL BAD THING if you get it.

[TPM]