Senate Democrats plan late-night talk-a-thon against Obamacare repeal

Senate Democrats are planning  to spend Monday night pressuring wavering Republicans to abandon Obamacare repeal with a late-night talkathon.

On Monday night, Senate Democrats plan to stay up late, delivering floor speeches and Facebook Live broadcasts attacking the Republicans’ drive to dismantle President Barack Obama’s signature health care law. They will also pressure Republicans over their push to defund Planned Parenthood and to make significant cuts to entitlement programs like Medicare and Medicaid.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) organized the effort, which will include multiple conference calls with a range of groups from Families USA, to Planned Parenthood, to the Service Employees International Union. Several dozen Democratic senators are expected to participate. […]

“We are taking to the floor and social media to denounce this plan and warn the American people that the Democrats will be fighting tooth and nail against this potentially catastrophic move,” Schumer said in a statement provided to The Huffington Post.

Monday’s show of force is an effort by Democrats to capitalize, in particular, on that rift among Republicans.

Republicans are definitely split, with at least four Republican senators expressing concern that they're getting ahead of themselves, repealing the law with no replacement plan and only vague ideas for mapping how to get to a replacement. For the handful who actually think about how law-making works, getting rid of the taxes—remember, this is a big tax break for the very wealthy—means there won't be any revenue to pay for any kind of replacement.

Democrats are going to make their case, in the hopes that some of these Republicans will join them in throwing the brakes on this rush to repeal, which McConnell wants accomplished before popular vote loser Donald Trump's inauguration. It'll only take two Republicans to stop it, but will any of them be brave enough—or principled enough?—to do it?