Democrats say the political pain from Republicans’ troubled Obamacare repeal effort could be felt years into the future, and are already gearing up to attack GOP senators up for re-election in 2020.
Save My Care, a coalition working to preserve the Affordable Care Act, on Monday targeted freshmen Senate Republicans in Colorado, North Carolina and Iowa, demanding they come out in opposition to Senate leaders’ current repeal-and-replace effort.
They cited numbers from Public Policy Polling, a left-leaning firm, that found voters in each of those states disapprove of the Republican health care plan by double-digit margins and would be less likely to support a senator who votes for it.
“There is clear evidence that supporting this health care repeal will do lasting damage to a senator’s standing with the voters in their state,” Save My Care said in a memo ahead of the July 4th holiday.
Only one Senate Republican — Nevada’s Dean Heller — is up for re-election in 2018, which President Trump lost, so Democrats have begun looking beyond next year in their search for political leverage in the health care debate.
The three current targets are Sen. Cory Gardner in Colorado, where Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton bested President Trump by 3 percentage points in November and only 26 percent of voters approve of the Senate GOP repeal bill; and Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Joni Ernst of Iowa — states where Mr. Trump won but voters tell pollsters they want senators to fix Obamacare instead of dismantling it, according to PPP.
Those senators haven’t staked out definitive positions for or against the draft Senate plan.
“Changes are currently being made to the Senate health care reform legislation, and Sen. Tillis looks forward to reviewing the improvements to the bill. As he has said repeatedly, any replacement plan must be a net improvement over Obamacare,” said Mr. Tillis’ spokesman, Daniel Keylin.
Ms. Ernst has said “the status quo simply isn’t an option” in Iowa, where much of the state will have just one insurer to choose from on its individual insurance market, though she’s seeking more input from folks back home.
“Your feedback is critical. I will be closely examining the bill to see how it will affect insurance availability and affordability in 2018 and beyond,” she wrote in a June 25 email to her constituents.
Mr. Gardner was on a 13-member working group charged with crafting the bill, though the final text was written by leadership staff, and the senator has said there should have been hearings on the bill. Though he has not said how he’d vote on the bill, he did tell the Denver Post that insurance CEOs think it would help to stabilize the market.
Meanwhile, poll after poll suggests voters would now rather salvage the 2010 health law than embrace the GOP’s alternative, leaving space for red-state Democrats to call for a bipartisan fix.
“Work with us Democrats who are willing to meet you in the middle, who have always been willing to meet you in the middle,” Sen. Joe Manchin III, West Virginia Democrat, said on “Fox News Sunday.”
Meanwhile, Mr. Heller, considered the most vulnerable GOP senator on the ballot in 2018, has been critical of the GOP plan, citing its sweeping cuts to Medicaid insurance for the poor.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee said it will keep the pressure on Mr. Heller anyway, with targeted ads over the weeklong Independence Day recess. While Mr. Heller participates in the July 4 parade in Ely, Nevada, web users near the route will be directed to 30-second YouTube ad that asks, “What will Sen. Heller’s vote on health care cost you?”
The AARP is also running ads in Nevada and Arizona, where first-term GOP Sen. Jeff Flake is running for re-election next year, and in Colorado and Alaska, where Sen. Dan Sullivan must defend his seat in 2020.
The seniors advocacy group wants the Senate to reject provisions that would allow insurers to charge older Americans up to five times what they charge younger ones, instead of the 3-to-1 ratio under Obamacare. The AARP calls the higher ratio an “age tax.”
Democrats are hoping to avert electoral disaster next year, when they must defend 25 Senate compared to just nine for the GOP. Incumbent Democrats face particularly tough reelection bids in states like Indiana, Missouri, North Dakota and West Virginia, each of which Mr. Trump seized by double digits in November.
The National Republican Senatorial Campaign is pointing to the steady exodus of insurers from Obamacare, particularly in the Midwest, to hammer Democrats in those seats.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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