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McConnell’s In-Kind Contribution: Confirming, Again, Pre-Existing Conditions Protections Are on the Ballot

McConnell blew Republican Senate candidates’ cover, shining a spotlight not only on the stakes of the election but also on the lies his candidates have told voters about protecting pre-existing conditions coverage.

Fox News: McConnell hints GOP will try ObamaCare repeal again next year

  • ObamaCare has emerged as a major issue in several swing-state races. In Missouri, for example, Fox News polling shows that incumbent Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill and Republican challenger Josh Hawley are neck-and-neck — and health care could ultimately decide the winner.

Fox News: President Trump, health care drive midterm elections

  • Less than three weeks until Election Day, voters are thinking most about health care, the economy, and reining in President Trump — and Democratic candidates are benefitting.
  • — Top issue: Health care.  While majorities of likely voters say the economy (54 percent) and President Trump (51 percent) will be “extremely” important to their House vote, more voters feel that way about health care (58 percent) — and that group prefers the Democratic candidate by a 24-point margin.  Meanwhile, a majority disapproves of how Trump is handling health care.

Washington Post Health 202: The Health 202: It’s triple trouble for Republicans on health care

  • Republicans are facing a triple whammy on health care in the midterm campaign. Here’s how:
  1. They failed to achieve a pair of coveted goals — namely, repealing Obamacare and slashing entitlement spending — despite controlling both the White House and Congress for two years.
  2. That has not stopped Democrats from pummeling them over this unaccomplished GOP to-do list and possibly seizing back control of the House.
  3. Just as Republicans are trying to back away from the issue, polls show that health care tops the list of voters’ worries heading into Election Day — Democrats hold an edge in which party is more trusted to tackle the issue.
  • As we’ve written extensively at The Health 202, Democrats have spent this election cycle running full-steam ahead on charges that Republicans want to do away with protections for Americans with preexisting conditions. This week, they seized on additional narratives: Republicans will aim to slash Medicare and Social Security if they retain the majority, twin entitlement programs upon which seniors heavily rely.
  • It’s hard to overstate how pivotal health care seems to be for voters in this year’s election. It’s the No. 1 issue for voters, per polling released this morning by the Kaiser Family Foundation, topping even the economy as the biggest factor affecting who people will vote for. That stands in contrast to every other election since the ACA was passed in 2010, when health care was a top consideration but certainly not voters’ chief worry.

Washington Post: As midterms near, Democrats accuse GOP of plotting to cut Medicare, Social Security

  • Democrats in state after state seized on McConnell’s remarks to renew their case about what they’re casting as a dire GOP threat to voters’ health care and financial security.
  • Van Hollen, who chairs the Senate Democratic campaign committee, held a conference with other party leaders to focus on McConnell’s comments. They sought to add urgency to arguments Democrats have been making in ads and campaign appearances all year, arguing that Republicans ballooned the deficit by passing a $1.5 trillion tax cut that mostly benefited corporations and the wealthy, and will now try to repair the damage by slashing entitlement programs.

Washington Post: McConnell: GOP may take another shot at repealing Obamacare after the midterms

  • Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Wednesday that Republicans may try again to repeal the Affordable Care Act after the November midterm elections, reviving an issue that polls show has swung sharply in the Democrats’ favor.
  • Polls show that health care is a top issue for voters, and many GOP candidates have begun campaigning on a longtime Democratic theme — protecting people with preexisting medical conditions — despite the fact that congressional Republicans have voted time and again to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which provides those protections.

Washington Post (Column): Democrats should thank McConnell for the last-minute assist

  • The main GOP policy goals — cutting entitlements, cutting taxes for the rich and repealing protection for preexisting conditions — are extremely unpopular. (Republicans’ positions on climate change, “dreamers,” the wall and plenty else are also out of sync with voters.) In the final stretch before Election Day, Democrats are likely to remind voters of the GOP’s ambitions should they retain control of both houses. With many voters already saying they want a check on Trump, McConnell reiterated the policy stances that voters fear most. Schumer and his party couldn’t have asked for a better “October surprise.”

Wall Street Journal: Republican Candidates Play Defense Over Health Care

  • Polls suggest Republicans are at a disadvantage on health issues for the first time in years. “They are more vulnerable,” said Robert Blendon, a political analyst and health policy professor at Harvard University. “What’s happened is that pre-existing conditions has gone from being a technical issue to an emotional one.
  • Democrats have seized on a lawsuit by 20 Republican-led states that seeks to invalidate the ACA as evidence of the GOP’s insensitivity. The Trump administration has weighed in on that case as well, asking that pre-existing condition protections, among others, be struck down
  • Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.) ran a recent ad in which he stands in a field, raises a rifle and fires at a copy of the lawsuit. He is campaigning against West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, one of the GOP officials bringing the case
  • Democrats also stress that Republicans pushed to repeal the ACA last year. Republicans say they generally backed amendments or replacement plans to retain coverage for pre-existing conditions.

Bloomberg: McConnell Defends Trump-Backed Suit on Health-Care Protections

  • Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell defended a lawsuit to undo the Affordable Care Act’s protection of insurance for pre-existing health conditions even though it’s become a problem for Republican candidates in the campaign for control of Congress.
  • Vulnerable red-state Senate Democrats Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Claire McCaskill of Missouri have used the lawsuit as a cudgel against their Republican opponents — in each case the attorney general of their state — who signed on to the lawsuit.
  • Other Democrats like Indiana Senator Joe Donnelly, Florida Senator Bill Nelson and Montana Senator Jon Tester are similarly using the GOP’s support for the Texas lawsuit against their Republican rivals in competitive races.

HuffPost: Republicans Will Repeal Obamacare If They Get The Chance, Mitch McConnell Says

  • The stakes in this fight are enormous. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act’s expansion of Medicaid, subsidies for people buying private insurance, and prohibitions on discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions, the number of people without health insurance has plunged to historic lows. Studies have shown that, as a result, people are struggling less with medical bills and have better access to care.

Axios: McConnell says Republicans could try again on ACA repeal

  • Between the lines: The quote has an obligatory tone to it.

Arizona Republic: Martha McSally’s R-rated health-care rant haunts her

  • McSally wants to change the subject… Which is health care.
  • And particularly any discussion about how she voted on a Republican plan that would have been a disaster for millions of Americans.
  • Protecting health care is kind of a big deal to voters and McSally voted for a plan to eliminate the Affordable Care Act that would have caused many individuals with preexisting conditions, along with others, to lose their insurance.
  • That plan didn’t become law, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said attacking the Affordable Care Act could be back on the table, depending on the results of the midterm elections. As would cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, in order to pay for the recent massive tax breaks for the wealthy.
  • These are not things McSally wants to talk about.

Tampa Bay Times: Poll: Overwhelmingly, Florida voters want to expand Medicaid coverage

  • Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson today will meet with Floridians with pre-existing conditions in Orlando. He wants to highlight the threat to many of those Floridians’ health coverage  from Republicans in the U.S. Senate wanting to repeal the Affordable Care Act and how Republican challenger Rick Scott began his political career campaigning against the Affordable Care Act.

Florida Phoenix: Dems say if Scott gets elected to US Senate, Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security in danger

  • A day after U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said America’s massive debt problem is driven by obligations to fund Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare, Florida Democrats and activists blasted the comments and asked if Governor Rick Scott feels the same way.

KSDK St. Louis: VERIFY: Fact checking Sen. McCaskill’s ad on pre-existing conditions

  • All three points center around pre-existing conditions, so we can also verify that is true, that Hawley is actively involved in a lawsuit that would strip away protections for patients with pre-existing conditions.

 

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