Coordinators of national Republican congressional campaigns are targeting Democrats like Florida Rep. Patrick Murphy for trying to run away from past support for Obamacare as dismal enrollment numbers and huge numbers of cancelled insurance plans.

Murphy is the only Florida Democrat behind a Republican plan due for a vote Friday to try to repair the damage from President Obama’s broken promise that Obamacare would not cost Americans the insurance policies they were happy with.

“The Affordable Care Act needs improvements …,” Murphy said in a statement. “I will work with any member, Democrat or Republican, who is willing to work together to find common-sense solutions such as this to put the American people first.”

But Republican opponents say Murphy’s support for the Keep Your Health Plan Act of 2013, introduced by U.S. Rep. John Upton, R-Mich., is an attempt to put his re-election first.

The Democrat who barely unseated incumbent Rep. Allen West in a congressional district Mitt Romney carried in 2012, is “desperately to distance himself” from the Obamacare law his party pushed through Congress in 2010, the National Republican Congressional Committee said in a statement.

The statement included a video of Murphy speaking at a candidates forum in 2012 praising Obamacare.

Katie Prill, a spokeswoman for the NRCC, told BizPac Review on Thursday that Murphy is one of four Democrats the committee is specifically targeting over latest Obamacare fiasco. The others are Reps. Allen Grayson, and Lois Frankel as well as Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee.

“The more [Obmacare] is implemented, the more damage we’re seeing inflicted on Democrats,” she said.

With Wednesday’s release of Obamacare enrollment figures, which showed only 106,000 Americans nationally joining the program since the train wreck began Oct. 1, and only 3,751 in Florida, the numbers are not adding up in the libs’ favor, Prill said.

In October, Florida Blue reported 300,000 insurance policies have been cancelled in the Sunshine State because they do not comply with Obamacare requirements.

“Those are hard numbers to swallow,” Prill said. “That’s something Patrick Murphy’s going to have to explain.”

One Republican competing for the nomination to challenge Murphy in 2014 called Murphy’s support for the Barton bill too little too late.

“Patrick Murphy has done the unthinkable – he’s actually made Nancy Pelosi look good,” former state Rep. Carl Domino wrote in a statement Thursday.  “He was a staunch supporter of Obamacare from the beginning and we can’t let him get away with flip flopping to save his seat.”

Murphy isn’t the only Democrat in Congress getting heat from the Obamacare train wreck their party forced through Congress without a single Republican vote in 2010. Two other Democrats have co-sponsored the bill, Reps. John Barrow, Ga., and Mike McIntyre, N.C.

And with the vote on the Upton bill looming Friday, a Democratic aide told The Hill that Democrats will “go crazy” if the Obama administration doesn’t come up with a way out.

“They’re voicing those frustrations with the administration,” another aide said, describing a meeting between House Democrats and the White House.

A second Democratic aide warned that if the administration doesn’t provide such a substitute by Friday, many members will “go crazy.”

Prill said Obamacare’s growing unpopularity – a Gallup poll released Wednesdayfound its disapproval rating at 55 percent with an approval rating of only 40 percent — will make it be increasingly hard for Democratic congressional incumbents to defend.

“Facts are facts,” she said.

“We’re seeing it across the country. When you’re a strong advocate for Obamacare, that’s something you can’t get away from.”

Check out the video the NRCC released with its statement showing Murphy supporting Obamacare.

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Joe Saunders

Joe Saunders, a 25-year newspaper veteran, is a staff writer and editor for BizPac Review who lives in Tallahassee and covers capital and Florida politics. Email Joe at [email protected].

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