Senate Republicans’ Attacks on Health Care Law, Protections for Pre-Existing Conditions Become “Political Liability for GOP Incumbents”

“Health Care Again Looks Poised to Be a Key Issue for Voters This Election” — and The Issue Has “Proved a Stumbling Block” for Senate Republicans

Public Opinion Surrounding the Health Care Law “Could Help Determine Control of the Senate”

A new deep dive from Kaiser Health News examines how attacking the Affordable Care Act and its protections has gone from a “winning strategy” for Republicans in 2014 to becoming a massive “political liability” that “could help determine control of the Senate” six years later. 

“The fall election will significantly revolve around people’s belief about what [candidates] will do for their health coverage,” one public health expert told KHN — and that’s bad news for Republicans. As public approval of the ACA has increased dramatically since the Senate’s failed repeal efforts in 2017, health care concerns are once again dominating political ads in the 2020 Senate races. As the Senate races heat up, Republicans’ voting records to dismantle the health law and gut protections for pre-existing conditions have “proved a stumbling block” for vulnerable GOP incumbents across the country.

Kaiser Health News: Opposition to Obamacare Becomes Political Liability for GOP Incumbents
By Markian Hawryluk
August 28, 2020

Key Points:

• In the 2014 elections, Republicans rode a wave of anti-Affordable Care Act sentiment to pick up nine Senate seats, the largest gain for either party since 1980. Newly elected Republicans such as Cory Gardner in Colorado and Steve Daines in Montana had hammered their Democratic opponents over the health care law during the campaign and promised to repeal it.

• Six years later, those senators are up for reelection. Not only is the law still around, but it’s gaining in popularity. What was once a winning strategy has become a political liability.

• Now, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing economic crisis, which has led to the loss of jobs and health insurance for millions of people, health care again looks poised to be a key issue for voters this election.

• With competitive races in Colorado, Montana, Arizona, North Carolina and Iowa pitting Republican incumbents who voted to repeal the ACA against Democratic challengers promising to protect it, attitudes surrounding the health law could help determine control of the Senate.

• “The fall election will significantly revolve around people’s belief about what [candidates] will do for their health coverage,” said Dr. Daniel Derksen, a professor of public health at the University of Arizona.

• Despite Gardner’s multiple votes to repeal the ACA, he has largely avoided talking about the measure during the 2020 campaign. He even removed his pro-repeal position from his campaign website. Democratic attack ads in July blasted Gardner for repeatedly dodging questions in an interview with Colorado Public Radio about his stance on a lawsuit challenging the ACA.

• His opponent, Democrat John Hickenlooper, fully embraced the law when he was Colorado governor, using the measure to expand Medicaid eligibility to more low-income people and to create a state health insurance exchange. Now, he’s campaigning on that record, with promises to expand health care access even further.

• “Since Trump won the election in 2016, we now have consistently found that a larger share of the public holds favorable views” of the health law, said Ashley Kirzinger, associate director of public opinion and survey research for the foundation. “This really solidified in 2017 after the failed repeal in the Senate.”

• The foundation’s polling found that, in July 2014, 55% of voters opposed the law, while 36% favored it. By July 2020, that had flipped, with 51% favoring the law and 38% opposing it. A shift was seen across all political groups, though 74% of Republicans still viewed it unfavorably in the latest poll.

• Public support for individual provisions of the ACA — such as protections for people with preexisting conditions or allowing young adults to stay on their parents’ health plans until age 26 — have proved even more popular than the law as a whole.

• “In the decade I have been tracking political advertising, there wasn’t a single-issue topic that was as prominent as health care was in 2018,” [Erika Franklin Fowler, the director of the Wesleyan Media Project, which tracks political advertising] said.

• As the global health crisis rages, health care concerns again dominate political ads in the 2020 races, Fowler said…

• Similar dynamics are playing out in other key Senate races. In Arizona, Republican Sen. Martha McSally was one of the more vocal advocates of repealing the ACA while she served in the House of Representatives. She publicly acknowledged those votes may have hurt her 2018 Senate bid.

• “I did vote to repeal and replace Obamacare,” McSally said on conservative pundit Sean Hannity’s radio show during the 2018 campaign. “I’m getting my ass kicked for it right now.”

• The ACA has proved a stumbling block for Republican Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Joni Ernst of Iowa. In Maine, GOP Sen. Susan Collins cast a key vote that prevented the repeal of the law but cast other votes that weakened it.

• In Montana, Daines, who voted to repeal the ACA, is trying to hold on to his seat against Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock, who used the law to expand the state’s Medicaid enrollment in 2015. At its peak, nearly 1 in 10 Montanans were covered through the expansion.

• As more Montanans now face the high cost of paying for health care on their own amid pandemic-related job losses, Montana State University political science professor David Parker said he expects Democrats to talk about Daines’ votes to repeal cost-saving provisions of the ACA.

• “People are losing jobs, and their jobs bring health care with them,” Parker said. “I don’t think it’s a good space for Daines to be right now.”

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