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PHOENIX (AP) – In a windowless conference room, Martha McSally, Republican Senate Senate candidate, asked leaders of a small crane manufacturing company how the GOP tax cut had helped their business when a woman said, "I would like to ask you a question about health care."
Marylea Evans recounted how, decades ago, her husband was unable to get health insurance after cancer, forcing the couple to sell part of his ranch in Texas to pay for his treatments. She was now worried about Democratic announcements, saying that McSally, currently a member of Congress, supported legislation removing the requirement for insurers to cover people with pre-existing health conditions.
"It's a lie," McSally quickly said, accustomed to having to interrupt a discussion about tax cuts to ward off attacks on health care. But she had voted for a large-scale bill that would, among other things, undermine protections for people with pre-existing illnesses and would have radically altered and shrunk Medicaid.
The exchange showed how the Democrats' arguments on health care resonated with voters in the last few weeks before the mid-term elections. While this year's Democrats' enthusiasm has been largely fueled by anger over President Donald Trump, candidates have targeted their messages so that they focus more on health care .
According to an analysis by The Wall Street Journal, it is today the subject of much of the political advertising on television and a major problem in the campaigns going from Virginia to Arkansas, passing through California – and especially in Arizona, where the Democratic Republic Kyrsten Sinema made it the foundation of his campaign in the Senate against McSally.
"Democrats are convinced that health care is the issue that will bring them the majority," said Nathan Gonzalez, editor and publisher of the non-partisan elections Inside Elections. "In 2016, Democrats learned that playing trump against Trump was not the right strategy, so they tried to be more specific."
The Democratic fury around health care comes from Trump's desire to repeal President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act. Republicans in the House voted for a bill that would have canceled parts of "Obamacare". But the Senate has never considered the bill and its own attempt to reverse the law on health care failed a vote.
This year, the Trump administration has backed a group of GOP Attorneys General who filed a lawsuit, arguing that "Obamacare" was unconstitutional. The administration has described as unsustainable the protection of pre-existing conditions.
The Democrats actually exercise political judo over the GOP, which has accused them, over four election cycles, of spoiling voters' health care with "Obamacare" and promised a hasty repeal once in power. Now that the GOP has tried and failed to change health care, the Democrats have jumped.
"You see in all the investigations, whether it's a race in the Senate in a red state or a race in the House in a purple district, health care is the first concern, "said Patrick McHugh of Priorities USA, a leading Democratic campaign group. "One party really wants to expand health care coverage and cut costs, and the other party has campaigned saying it was the case, but when they came to power, they did not want to." Did not do it. "
In Missouri, Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill defends her siege by pointing out that her Republican opponent, Attorney General Josh Hawley, has signed the lawsuit for pre-existing conditions. In Michigan, Democrat Elissa Slotkin aired an announcement showing her mother dying of cancer and called the incumbent Republican Representative Mike Bishop's vote on the GOP Health Bill "for breach of duty" . In Arizona, the Democratic doctor Hiral Tipirneni comes up against Republican Debbie Lesko after shocking the political world by barely losing a special April election to fill that position on a health care platform.
Glen Bolger, a Republican pollster, notes that health care is a fundamental issue of the democratic base but recognizes that it appears particularly powerful this year. However, he added, Republicans have the potential to counter the support of some Democrats for a single-payer system that would require higher taxes.
"That, as a push back message, is testing very well," said Bolger.
Republicans have used it in races where democratic challengers have backed politics – such as against Katie Porter, a lawyer against Republican Representative Mimi Walters in Southern California, or against social worker Kara Eastman, who is not involved in politics. is strongly relied on the single payer in his challenge to the representative Don Bacon in Nebraska. The GOP has even indicted Democrats who have not supported a single payer program, such as Abigail Spanberger, who challenges Rep. David Brat in Virginia.
Gonzalez said the GOP's responses showed that he was fighting on the ground of the Democrats and was preventing the GOP from taking advantage of the economy on economic growth.
"Democrats believe that health care is an antidote to Republican speeches about the economy," he said.
The Senate Contest of Arizona provides a microcosm of the issue. Democrats began hitting McSally on health care with a barrage from a black money group during the primary and did not let go, accusing him of trying to weaken the protection against pre-existing illnesses and to impose more health insurance on the elderly. Sinema mentions the problem wherever she goes. In an interview Wednesday with the Spanish-language network Univision, she called it "centerpiece of my campaign".
In a recent appearance to bring volunteers to Scottsdale, Sinema was introduced by Leslie Foldy, a 64-year-old court reporter. "I have been diabetic since high school, I have been taking insulin injections … for 47 years," said Foldy.
Sinema took up the theme and ran with it. "We have a chance to elect an American senator who understands Leslie's difficulties in ensuring that she has access to the essential medications she needs and that she does not do the same." She is discriminated against because of her pre-existing health condition, "she said. Mr. McSally argued that the GOP's Health Bill contained what it calls an "age tax", a provision that allows insurance companies to charge people aged 50 to 64 who subscribe to health exchange rates five times higher than younger consumers. Under the ACA, the limit is three times higher.
In an interview, Sinema described his health care program as primarily a struggle to preserve the popular parts of Obamacare. She said that she did not like everything about the bill and said that she had sponsored bills delaying or repealing some of its funding mechanisms – medical device taxes and insurance. disease.
Instead, McSally focuses on the shortcomings of the law, accusing the law of raising health premiums for small businesses and other consumers, and arguing that Republicans are just trying to make things better. She bristles at the "tax-on-age" attacks because she's written an amendment that adds $ 90 billion in subsidies to older consumers to protect themselves from more insurance rates. high. Although the GOP's health bill contains provisions that weaken ACA's protection against pre-existing conditions, McSally calls pre-existing conditions "a line in the sand" that it will protect.
"We all have people in our lives battling chronic diseases," McSally said. "It's personal for all of us." Democrats take this course of action because they know that health care is personal. "
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