Shh! Don't tell the Republicans

Tonight, after Obama's great inspiring speech, Republican Bobby Jindall was babbling about the Republican health care plan.
As Chris Matthews said, Uhhh? Six years in power and the Republicans never once mentioned health care or did anything about it. For the last eight years, the Republicans did absolutely nothing about health care in America.
And it occurred to me to wonder -- what if they did?
For much of the 45 years since Tommy Douglas brought in medicare, Saskatchewan voters kept voting NDP. And for much of the 40 years since the Canadian Health Act enforced nation-wide medicare standards, Canadian voters kept voting Liberal.
Oh, sure, I know, there were lots of reasons that people voted for and against the NDP and the Liberals over the last four decades. But medicare was a core value of both parties, and the voters knew it. Basically, we knew medicare would continue to be safe as long as we kept the NDP in power provincially, and the Liberals in power federally.
Now, I've read that the Republicans don't want the Democrats to bring in universal medicare because they're afraid of how popular the Democrats would be as a result.
But I wonder if the Republicans will ever realize that, if they could only introduce or take credit for bringing Americans real honest-to-goodness universal medical care, they will have guaranteed themselves American voters for the next 40 years?