These Republican Senators Will Lie To You About Doing What They Did

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Lying about protecting health care didn’t work in 2018 and it won’t work in 2020.

Here we go again

by Joan McCarter

Some of the most vulnerable Senate Republicans are trying to convince voters that they didn’t do exactly what they did: vote to end protections for people with preexisting conditions in the Affordable Care Act (ACA). They did it when they had no viable plan to replace it, and seemingly no real intention of getting it done. Yet, here’re three of them trying to sell that lie to voters, again.

In ads and in interviews, these three—Steve Daines of Montana, Cory Gardner of Colorado, and Martha McSally in Arizona—all talk about how hard they’ll work to protect people’s health care. Just like in 2018, they’re all talking about protecting people with preexisting conditions, and just like 2018, they’re lying through their teeth. Notably, not one will say whether they oppose Donald Trump’s lawsuit in which Trump’s lawyers made the specific point that those protections had to go. Not a single one of these three will say they oppose that.

“Steve Daines will protect Montanans with preexisting conditions,” says this Daines ad. It features a doctor who says that “Bullock will help Biden and Pelosi pass government-controlled health care. Their liberal plan would force rural hospitals to close, raise our taxes, and put government bureaucrats between me and my patients.” Daines in fact voted to repeal Obamacare in 2013 and again when the Senate tried to do it in 2017. On the other hand, as governor Bullock fought for Medicaid expansion in Montana and got it, getting coverage for tens of thousands of people and helping to save their hospitals. Daines has refused to say he opposes Trump’s lawsuit.

Gardner told Colorado Public Radio: “What I look forward to working on is a plan that protects people with preexisting conditions.” That does have a hidden truth in its implication that working on that plan is something Senate Republicans still haven’t done. That hasn’t stopped Gardner from voting to repeal those protections repeatedly, starting when he was in the House in 2011. He also won’t say if he supports Trump’s lawsuit, but the Post notes he avoided the question six times in the public radio interview. He’s also told The Hill: “That’s the court’s decision. If the Democrats want to stand for an unconstitutional law, I guess that’s their choice.” I guess that’s also his weasel answer on the lawsuit.

Arizona’s McSally has been running an ad that says: “Of course I will always protect those with preexisting conditions. Always.” We’ve looked at this one before. In fact, McSally has voted a minimum of eight times to repeal the ACA. She’s the one famous for cheerleading in a House Republican meeting right before the 2017 repeal vote that it was time to get the “fucking thing” done. When her campaign was pushed to answer whether she supports Trump’s lawsuit, it wouldn’t, “but pointed to her general disapproval of the ACA.” What’s astounding is McSally lost in her Senate campaign in 2018 against Kyrsten Sinema on this issue, getting her seat by appointment after that loss and Jon Kyl’s retirement. So you’d think she’d have learned.

Arizona, Colorado, Montana—all of them are battlegrounds now. Trump made that happen. His lawsuit against the ACA made that happen. That lawsuit in the middle of a pandemic made that happen. Republicans lost on health care in 2018, and they did not learn their lesson. They’re going to lose on it again.

In case you missed it: The Duke and the Ghost In the Closet

Article reprinted with permission of the Daily Kos.

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Call Me Steve
3 years ago

They will lie to you no matter what day it is. They always have.

Bill Formby
3 years ago

These folks are going to live and die by Trump’s side. In if some cases if Trump fails, they will also.

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