On the issues: Rep. Michelle Steel and Jay Chen on abortion, immigration and healthcare.
Today marks one month since the Senate Republican health bill was rejected for a simple reason: It didn’t contain enough of the “essential” parts of Obamacare – Medicaid, health savings accounts (HSAs), Obamacare exchanges and subsidies – to make it politically palatable.
As Republicans have been working on their bill, their base has been calling for the repeal of key parts of Obamacare: the regulations limiting preexisting condition pre-existing coverage, and the mandate for employers to help pay their employees’ health insurance premiums. So the GOP has been forced to abandon the repeal efforts that became their central focus – and instead offer a plan that, in the end, offers even less.
But the Senate’s health care bill has other key parts – in fact, key parts not even found in Obamacare – that could make it popular. These will likely be key to whether Republicans can win the election in the Senate.
These key Obamacare “sins” won’t be made popular by a single measure in the Senate GOP health care bill. But they will be made popular by a combination of the bill and efforts to repeal (or replace) various other key parts of Obamacare.
To be sure, these areas of potential Republican popular appeal aren’t actually new: the right wing has long favored these parts of Obamacare. Their unpopularity is largely because they hurt the poor (the elderly, the disabled and children) and increased coverage costs for everyone else. And because they also increased premium subsidies for the rich.
But these new parts of the legislation offer something very new – opportunities to win the election for the GOP.
The Senate GOP health care bill offers an opportunity to win the election for Republicans in states like New Hampshire that haven’t voted in years. (And don’t fret about not winning the New England states since New Hampshire is a very purple state.) The Republican health care bill gives these states a new reason to vote for President Trump in 2020.
The Senate GOP health care bill offers an opportunity, too, for states like Pennsylvania where Trump has held strong support for years, to hold on to those voters. The House GOP health bill does exactly the opposite – gives states like New Jersey, Connecticut, New York and New Jersey the opportunity to send Republicans to the Senate, where they are sure to lose.
Even in those states with relatively slim margins in the House and states
