Republicans, Democrats go for a healthcare reckoning after Saturday primaries

After the Saturday's South Carolina primary, the Republican presidential race has realistically reduced to 1 candidate, Donald Trump, who has depicted ambivalent feelings about the Affordable Care Act and 2, Sens. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, who need to erase it. Trump scored a powerful success this weekend over Rubio and Cruz, who necessarily tied for second.

On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton, who needs to make better and expand Obamacare, achieved a primary victory Saturday over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a champion of single-payer government health insurance, in the Nevada caucuses.

The fate of the ACA and the shape of the future U.S. healthcare network are likely to be a huge problem in the general election. There also could be battle of words and advertising over the future of Medicare and Medicaid.

There is one other long-shot GOP contender, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who encourages the Medicaid expansion part of the healthcare reform law. He considers slogging on through the Super Tuesday primaries across the country March 1. Dr. Ben Carson, who also finished far back in the GOP field in the South Carolina, also plans to sustain running, though his campaign has fallen apart.

Jeb Bush, who came out in the favor of replacing the ACA with certain type of system of catastrophic health insurance system, dropped out of the Republican race after doing worse in South Carolina.