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Washington Post: Top Republicans “Vowing to Try Again” to Spike Health Care Costs, Gut Coverage Protections for Millions of Americans

At annual legislative retreat, House GOP doubled down on plans to “scrap the 2010 law that has provided coverage for tens of millions of Americans and ensured health care for those with preexisting medical conditions”

After voters resoundingly rejected the GOP’s toxic health care agenda in the 2018 elections, the Washington Post reports that Republicans are “vowing to try again” to tear down the health care law and its protections for millions of Americans if they regain total control of Washington in 2020. At their annual legislative retreat, top House Republicans “said they would try again to scrap the 2010 law that has provided coverage for tens of millions of Americans and ensured health care for those with preexisting medical conditions.” Senate Republicans have promised the same.

Republicans have been unable to come up with a viable alternative to the Affordable Care Act, so it’s no wonder they still “have no credibility when it comes to health care” — which remains voters’ “top priority.” Voters continue to trust Democrats over Republicans on health care.

“Health care is voters’ most important issue, and Republicans in Washington are openly promising to revive their toxic agenda to spike costs, take away coverage, and tear down popular consumer protections if they win next year’s election,” said DSCC spokesperson Stewart Boss. “You’d think by now Republicans in Washington would have learned that supporting plans to make health care more expensive and gut the protections for pre-existing conditions their constituents rely on is a losing strategy, but they refuse to give up on this political crusade.”

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Washington Post: House Republicans, seeking path back to majority, vow to try again on scrapping health-care law, curbing deficits

Mike DeBonis

September 13, 2019

Key Points: 

  • [Republicans] can’t seem to stop thinking about the issues that got away — most notably their failure to repeal the Affordable Care Act — and are vowing to try again if Americans give them all levers of power.
  • Meeting for their annual legislative retreat here nearly nine months into the minority, top GOP officials couldn’t help but raise matters such as health care and skyrocketing budget deficits that bedeviled the party before last year’s House Democratic midterm sweep.
  • If Trump is reelected, the GOP recaptures the House and holds the Senate, the president and Republicans said they would try again to scrap the 2010 law that has provided coverage for tens of millions of Americans and ensured health care for those with preexisting medical conditions.
  • But nine years after Obamacare, the GOP has been unable to come up with an alternative that fulfills those promises. The Trump administration, meanwhile, is pressing federal courts to declare the law unconstitutional, with a ruling expected this fall.
  • Trump and Republicans had full control of the White House and Congress for two years, yet never made the deep spending cuts to rein in deficits and passed a tax cut that is projected to add $1.9 trillion to the deficit over 10 years.
  • On Thursday, the Treasury Department said the federal deficit topped $200 billion in August, bringing the total deficit for the year to more than $1 trillion.
  • But while acknowledging the need to appeal to voters concerned about those issues, GOP leaders stopped short of fully embracing any particular course correction — with little evidence, for instance, of any policy shift from the health-care approach that drove successful Democratic campaigns in 2018 or any new strategy for overhauling popular entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security. 
  • The health-care debate might not wait until voters go to the polls next November: More than a dozen GOP-controlled states are currently suing to overturn the ACA with the Trump administration’s backing, and a federal appeals court could rule within weeks, putting the issue in the hands of a Supreme Court with a solid conservative majority.
  • Democrats carpet-bombed Republicans with health-care attack ads ahead of the midterms that highlighted the 2017 GOP push to repeal the ACA
  • The most potent Democratic attacks have surrounded protections for people with preexisting conditions, and the issue has been vexing Republicans for years.
  • “If we are given the majority and the opportunity one more time, our promise will be: We will not allow the Democrats to stop us again,” McCarthy said. “We came one vote short in the Senate from entitlement reform. We will have the ability, with a Republican Senate and with President Trump, to change it once for all and make America strong.”

Read the full story here.

As Republicans double down on their toxic health care agenda, here’s a refresher on why this remains a losing issue for the GOP in 2020:

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