Republicans want to stop Obamacare because, as they say, the people don’t want it. It would be more likely that those people who have the Republicans in their back pocket are the ones who don’t want it.

Here’s a simple fact that Republicans seem to be blind to: Obamacare is the product of the president’s first term. Republicans, including their nominee for president, vowed to repeal Obamacare “the first day in office.”

But the Republicans lost the election in what could be considered an electoral landslide. They should see that as a mandate of acceptance for Obama’s first term in office, and that the American people do want the Affordable Care Act. If Americans did not want Obamacare, they would have elected Mitt Romney, but they did not.

So, rather than hold the federal government hostage over Obamacare, which Americans obviously do want, Republicans should get to work and start earning the pay and benefits for which those same Americans are being billed.

The public needs to either make them earn the pay and pensions being provided or boot them out of office.

Jeff Bishop, Phillips