Saturday, October 27, 2018

Will Their Opposition To Healthcare Kill The GOP November 6th?

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One of the funniest moments in the election debate this cycle-- at least for me-- came when Arizona congresswoman, Martha McSally, a garden variety Trump rubber-stamp who had voted to repeal protections for pre-existing conditions several times, was cornered by a reporter asking her to square her consistent record against healthcare with her promise now-- as she runs for U.S. Senate-- to protect people with pre-existing conditions from the greed of insurance companies. After lying for a few minutes to a reporter who kept pointing out her votes, she finally said something to the effect of "Can't you ask me about something voters are interested in, like the Caravan?" True, Fox News and hate talk radio hosts are interested in the Caravan... but voters? Not so much. They're more interested in Republicans trying to take away their healthcare.



In TX-10, Mike Siegel is campaign for Congress on a platform that includes Medicare for All. His opponent, Michael McCaul is a Trump enabler who has voted to destroy Medicare and to strip away protections for pre-existing conditions. "I have friends and family who would not be alive, and would not have healthcare, but for the Affordable Care Act's protections for pre-existing conditions," Mike told us. "My cousin received a liver transplant that his private insurance refused to pay for, thanks to the ACA. My opponent Michael McCaul voted repeatedly to repeal the ACA without having any replacement in place. The differences between us could not be more stark, and the choice for voters is clear." This is the ad Mike has been running on social media in his district:



In Omaha, progressive Democrat Kara Eastman has had to confront this bullshit head-on, as her opponent, anti-healthcare fanatic and desperate, compulsive liar Don Bacon (R-NE), has tried to pose as a protector of preexisting conditions-- even though he voted against protecting them every single time he could. "My opponent," she told us, "voted 'Hell Yes' for the AHCA. He claims this would have protected people with pre-existing conditions. However, the Washington Post gave this claim 3 PINOCCHIOS as the law would have allowed states the option to seek waivers that would nullify this promise."



The new Ipsos poll released by Reuters yesterday shows that 58% of likely voters want to keep ObamaCare in place and "eight in 10 likely voters from each major party want to protect coverage for people with existing conditions, such as heart disease, diabetes or cancer." I wonder how long before Trump and his sycophants start claiming they support it too. And have always supported it.
With the Nov. 6 elections looming, Democrats are reminding voters of Republicans’ often-repeated promises to repeal the 2010 law. Many Republican candidates are softening their tone or removing website references decrying what they long derided as “Obamacare,” according to candidates, analysts and healthcare experts in both parties.

As Democrats seek to take control of Congress, they see Republicans as having a particularly weak spot on healthcare. Sixty-seven of the 73 most vulnerable Republican incumbents in the House of Representatives voted at least once to eliminate the ACA and its protections for pre-existing conditions, according to the Center for American Progress Action Fund.



Some of those votes date back to the Obama administration, though his successor, Republican President Donald Trump, also campaigned on a promise to undo the law. A repeal attempt after Trump took office last year failed.

Opinion polls show Democrats as having a chance to achieve the net gain of 23 seats they would need to take a majority in the House, but facing a longer shot at picking up the two seats they need to take control of the Senate.

Democratic activists said the repeated Republican attempts to repeal the ACA provide a powerful tool to motivate voters.

“Healthcare has an ability to move people into action,” said Ben Wikler, Washington director of liberal activist group MoveOn. “It is turning people out in town hall meetings ... getting people to make hundreds of thousands of phone calls and getting voters to the polls.”

One sign of Democratic focus: 54.5 percent of Democrats’ federal election ads from Sept. 18 to Oct. 15 mentioned healthcare, far more than the 8.7 percent that did so at the same time in 2010, according to the Wesleyan Media Project.

Some 33.9 percent of Republican federal election ads mentioned healthcare during this period and 31.5 percent in 2010. Republicans took control of the House in the 2010 midterm elections, boosted in part by opposition to the ACA, which had become law earlier that year.

While the aim of the ACA was to expand healthcare insurance to reach millions of Americans who did not have any coverage, Republicans campaigned for years against it as government overreach, especially its requirement that people buy health insurance or pay a financial penalty.

U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill has made healthcare the focus of her campaign in Missouri against Republican challenger Josh Hawley. The state’s attorney general, Hawley has faced criticism from individuals and healthcare groups for saying he supports covering pre-existing conditions even after suing to end the ACA.

“Everyone is feeling anxious and worried about the future of healthcare,” McCaskill said in a telephone interview. “It’s beginning to dawn on people that the Republicans didn’t have a replacement (for the ACA), and that they have no ideas on how they could do it better.”

Hawley ran for state attorney general by emphasizing his role in a lawsuit against the ACA that went to the U.S. Supreme Court, and also worked on a team that successfully challenged the ACA’s requirement to provide contraceptives coverage.

Despite Republican opposition, eight years after its passage many Americans have seen some benefits from the law.

“By the time Republicans last year tried to repeal the law, it had become real, people had benefited,” said Brad Woodhouse, executive director of Protect Our Care. He said at least 20 Republican incumbents have “scrubbed” their websites to appear more supportive of the law.



In Kentucky, Representative Andy Barr has called his vote to repeal the ACA “a great day for freedom in America” but now plays up his support of programs to prevent and treat opioid addiction. In Maine, Representative Bruce Poliquin dropped a promise to “end Obamacare” and now talks about protecting hospitals.



Ted Cruz, a U.S. senator from Texas, said during a debate this month against Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke that he would protect pre-existing illnesses, despite having once forced a shutdown of the federal government over ACA repeal efforts.

In a hotly contested upstate New York congressional race, Democratic challenger Antonio Delgado has hammered his opponent, first-term Republican John Faso, over his vote to repeal the ACA.

“John Faso, despite voting to take away protections, is running TV ads saying the exact opposite,” he said during a recent town hall meeting. “How can you look someone in the face and say, ‘No, I didn’t do that.’ After a while, you’re just lying to our faces blatantly. This is too real to lie about.”

Faso defended his vote in an interview, saying New York state law already ensures patients with pre-existing conditions are protected, regardless of federal legislation.

Despite support for specific elements of the law, 52 percent of likely voters told Reuters/Ipsos they view the U.S. healthcare system as “poor” or “terrible.”


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4 Comments:

At 6:26 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Here is one issue where the democraps actually are different than the Nazis.

The Nazis and the Nazi voters are loathe to help anyone who needs it. They are virulently against using a nickel of their tax money to do this. They call it freedom, but it's really hate. All who need sustenance help are among the demos they hate. In short, if they are denied sustenance, they'll die sooner. That engorges the Nazis and their voters.
The Nazis in office also know that once sustenance money is no longer wasted on those parasites, it can be stuffed into the pockets of their wealthy ownership caste.

The democraps serve corporations, many of whom sell health insurance and meds. So the democraps want everyone to contribute to the profitability of these insurance and phrma corporations (their ceos and boards...). Forcing 30 million more people to do this was the whole point of ACA -- because otherwise those 30 million could not afford or did not want to spend a big chunk of their modest incomes on it.

Given another congress, the Nazis will continue to try to kill poor people in as many ways as they can.

Given another transitory congress, the democraps will try to increase the power of these corporations to profit from the health/phrma needs of as many as they can.

neither party will do one thing about corporate greed, affordability, denials of care, price gouging and the like. For the Nazis, it's a 'freedom' thing. For the democraps, it's against their DNA to impede any corporation from gouging customers as much as they find amusing.

ANYONE who believed that trump would cover everyone with a 'terrific' plan, and who believes any Nazi running this cycle would protect pre-existing conditions is a fucking imbecile who should be deemed far too stupid to vote.

Anyone who believes that the democraps are better than simple corporate whores are fucking imbeciles who should be deemed far too stupid to vote.

 
At 7:11 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

It should . . . but it won't. Taxes, governmental regulation, Hillary's emails, Benghazi, gays getting married, immigrants - every issue far more important to a brain-dead segment of the American electorate than whether the healthcare industry is even going to survive and be viable when they will need it - with or without obamanationcare. To such mental defectives, action taken against those who are hated is far more important than even their own well-being, for if they died it would be in a good cause. The Power MUST be victorious!

Anyone who has read The Authoritarians by Robert Altemeyer completely understands that idea. If you haven't read it yet, you should. I don't know if it's still available free for download, but it isn't that expensive if one must pay for it.

 
At 7:21 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

DWT asks, "Will Their Opposition To Healthcare Kill The GOP November 6th?"

The answer NO. It's now become beyond boring to see DWT write these articles. Not once has DWT held Obama responsible for giving up on the public option when he had the supermajority and could have gotten anything passed - even this article does not mention it. Reading these articles on this blog has become one massive waste of time.

 
At 9:36 AM, Blogger Steve said...

If doing nothing and being against everything was the way to build a better society, I would vote Conservative or Republican.

 

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