[ad_1]
COLUMBIA, Missouri – Senator Claire McCaskill does not intend to remind voters of the meaning of her campaign. She renamed the tour "Your health, your vote".
The turnaround could not be more surprising. After spending years moving as far as possible from the health care law of President Barack Obama, Mrs. McCaskill and the vulnerable Senate Democrats in Florida, West Virginia and the United States. Other political battlegrounds have increasingly focused their final argument on one problem: safeguarding the Affordable Care Act.
Now, with Republicans desperate to reposition themselves and present their own health argument, and with the elections under the assaulting winds of immigration and the confirmation hearings of Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, the question is whether health care will be enough to save her and the Democrats in other key races of the Senate. More recently, the mail bombs sent from Florida and the fatal shooting of the synagogue in Pittsburgh on Saturday added new jagged pieces that could further disrupt the strategy of both parties.
McCaskill and her Republican opponent, Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley, again clashed over health care during their final debate on Thursday. She congratulated him for taking part in a lawsuit contesting the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act and ending his protections for people with pre-existing conditions. He said he supported a program that would protect patients whose medical costs are high outside of the current health care law.
On the same day, President Trump proposed to Medicare to pay for some prescription drugs on the basis of prices in other industrialized countries – a single initiative from the White House and Republicans while they were trying to fight against the perceptions that their policies would cancel the protections granted to people. with pre-existing medical conditions.
And on Friday, Mr. Obama, in speeches in Detroit and Milwaukee, has made fun of the Republican ads on health care, accusing them of trying to rewrite history and their own positions after trying for years to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
It's unclear whether the Democrats' message on health will hold up as Trump, through almost daily gatherings and frequent attacks on Twitter, tries to dominate TV news and social media in the final days of the week. campaign. He said the intermediate sessions would concern "Kavanaugh, caravan, law and order and common sense".
But after years of unsuccessful attempts to rally voters behind the complexities of President Obama's health care law, Democrats this year discovered the emotional power of one of its benefits, protecting people with pre-existing conditions.
The subject informed polls, monopolized advertising budgets and led a national strategy for Democrats, who defend 10 Senate seats in the states won by President Trump and rely heavily on health care as a critical issue in Key states such as Arizona, Florida and West Virginia. and Nevada.
"This is the message that comes directly from the inhabitants of the Red States," said Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, chairman of the Senate campaign committee for Democrats.
Republicans have been put on the defensive, insisting in television ads featuring family members to also support affordable care for people with pre-existing illnesses.
Their claims come after years of trial and vote in Congress of Republicans to weaken or weaken the protection of the health care law against costly chronic diseases.
In addition to shaping a message about health care, Hawley is relying on a categorical call to partisanship. Asked about the closing message of his campaign, Mr. Hawley's Campaign Director, Kyle Plotkin, highlighted the boldly represented slogan on the campaign bus: "Stop Schumer. Fire Claire. Do not let the Liberals take power. "
Callie Glascock, a Trustee of the University of Missouri who voted for Trump, announced Sunday that she would vote for Ms. McCaskill, who is seeking a third term for health reasons. "Everyone means that Obamacare was bad. Well, who has come up with a better plan? She asked at a pumpkin pumpkin cart market in Ashland, Missouri.
At the same time, his father-in-law, a long-time Democrat, leans toward Mr. Hawley.
He said: You know what, having looked at all the information of Judge Kavanaugh, changed his mind about voting Democrat, said his son, Mike Glascock, also present at the market. "He just hated all that rhetoric."
Mid-term reviews "formally concern health care", in the conclusion of the Wesleyan Media Project, whose analysis of television commercials in congresses revealed that almost half included a discussion about health care.
Two years ago, in the 2016 election, health care figured in only 10% of Democratic ads.
A poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation last week found that in two battlefield states, Florida and Nevada, nearly seven out of ten voters favored the protection of people with pre-existing conditions, even if that meant that healthy people would pay more.
The health democrats' demise of health is astonishing former Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, who lost her seat in the last cycle, she added, because of her vote in favor of the Social Security Act. affordable care in 2010.
Prior to the 2014 election campaign, Landrieu had invited other Democrats from the Red State to run for office in Washington, DC, to reflect on the reforms they could propose without actually mentioning " Obamacare. " They did not succeed.
Not only was Mrs. Landrieu, but other Democrats were swept that year to Arkansas, Alaska, and North Carolina, thus offering Republicans the majority in the Senate.
"The truth ends up winning," Ms. Landrieu said of the growing popularity of the Affordable Care Act in polls. "It did not happen fast enough for us."
National Democrats said the problem was raised this year by voters. In fact, the party was taken by surprise last year as Congress was inundated with phone calls and protesters when Republicans tried unsuccessfully to repeal the Affordable Care Act through a series of spectacular votes.
As the issue dissipated a little in the minds of voters, Republicans from 20 states filed lawsuits this year to overturn what was left of the law. In June, the Trump administration intervened. Citing the approval of the president, the Justice Department said it agreed with the need to end the health care law guarantees that insurance companies could not deny coverage to people with pre-existing illnesses or charge them more.
"They gave us the political gift of the cycle," said Brad Woodhouse, executive director of Protect Our Care, an advocacy group on the left.
Since then, Republicans from many nearby races have struggled, insisting that they too wish to protect people with pre-existing diseases.
Martha McSally of Arizona and Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, two Republican House members who ran in the Senate elections, claimed that they voted in 2017 in favor of the Senate. repeal and replacement of Obamacare projects that would have protected people with pre-existing conditions.
Similarly, Sen. Dean Heller of Nevada, the most vulnerable Republican who is seeking re-election, said in a debate last week that he had helped write a draft of 2017 law protecting pre-existing conditions.
Yet Republican bills have diluted or eliminated the protections provided by the existing law. They would have allowed states to receive waivers to allow insurers to charge higher premiums to people in poor health.
Nowhere is the question more important than in the tight race of Missouri.
McCaskill, 65, says during the election campaign that when she was a young lawyer, her parents were forced to settle with her after her father lost his job and his family. insurance due to a brain tumor. "I remember hearing my mother in the room next door being very upset because she was so scared," she said at a rally last Friday.
Hawley, as the Missouri Attorney General, is a plaintiff in a lawsuit in several states that would end the Affordable Care Act.
In the face of criticism on the issue, he recorded an advertisement in which he says he learned that his 5-year-old son was suffering from a chronic illness and that he was going to force the insurance companies to cover pre-existing illnesses.
In a newspaper column, Hawley suggested that the federal government pay more than $ 10,000 for people with pre-existing conditions. His plan did not include any details on how the government would raise the funds needed to cover these costs.
Ms. McCaskill called it a "press release plan" during a debate last week. "You can not go to court and get rid of the important protections when there is no reinforcement, when people will fall in free fall," she said.
In an interview on Saturday, after attending the University of Missouri reunion parade, Hawley, 38, said his plan would cost "only a fraction" of the care law. affordable. He attacked Ms. McCaskill for not considering alternatives that are not part of Obamacare. The 2010 law offset the expenses of people with an existing illness by forcing healthy people to take out insurance – a mandate that has since been abolished by Republicans.
For all Democrats, the impact of the issue on voters is uncertain.
John Kosach, a 32-year-old public relations researcher in a suburb of St. Louis, said that he was supporting Ms. McCaskill. "Claire's message that Hawley will repeal the law but that there is no plan in place, it sounds with me," he said.
His wife, 31-year-old Sam Kosach, who also works in public relations, said Hawley had used his family in advertising about his support for pre-existing conditions "he felt really clumsy".
Another constituent, Karen French, a 59-year-old retired nurse, is part of the broad group of conservatives who crossed party boundaries to vote for McCaskill, one of Missouri's two Democrats in power.
This year, however, she will not do it.
"I am a little ashamed of my country and the mess we have caused in the life of Judge Kavanaugh," she said. "I would have probably voted for Claire until that happens."
French, who lives in rural Fulton, Missouri, has a 28-year-old girl who suffers from serious heart and lung problems. When asked if she feared that Mr. Hawley's lawsuit would threaten the protections afforded to people like her daughter, Ms. French intervened before a reporter could end his question.
"It does not matter to me," she said. "What is more important is the situation that occurred with Judge Kavanaugh."
Source link
