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Felicia Sonmez
National Journalist in the Washington Post Political Press Team
John Wagner
National journalist heads up the political press team at The Post newspaper
President Trump celebrated last year with House Republicans at the White House Rose Garden when they passed a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act and protect Americans suffering from pre-existing medical conditions.
On Wednesday, less than two weeks before the midterm elections, Trump falsely claimed that the insurance of people with asthma, diabetes, pregnancy or other is a Republican priority rather than a democratic one.
"Republicans will totally protect people with preexisting conditions, not Democrats! Republican vote, "Trump m said Wednesday in a tweet.
The misleading statement on the 2010 Health Care Act, which was passed with only Democratic votes, reflects a strategy that Republicans hope to bring back. November 6: Repeatedly repeat to voters that the GOP supports one of ACA's most popular provisions and hopes that they will ignore it. forget about eight years of votes, rhetoric, legal efforts and bureaucratic steps to wipe out the law.
"Overall, voters want the candidates to talk about this," said Ashley Kirzinger, chief investigator at the Kaiser Family Foundation, about protections for people with pre-existing conditions. What throws uncertainty about the elections, she said, is that voters "may not be making the connection, repealing the ACA would also mean eliminating those protections".
The change in the Republican message, which extends from the President to the Senate and House candidates in competitive races across the country, is part of a climate of growing uncertainty about next month's elections.
Several factors have favored Republicans over the last few weeks, including the increase in Trump's approval rate and the formation of a newly-based party base in the battle against Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh. .
Yet health care remains the Republican Party's Achilles heel and GOP candidates, such as Arizona Senate Representative Martha McSally, have been confronted with thorny questions about how to reconcile their support. current coverage of pre-existing conditions and their efforts to abolish the right disease of care.
McSally, who faces Democrat Kyrsten Sinema in one of the country's most watched Senate races, catches the eye with a new ad in which she says she "leads the battle." . . force insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions "- even if it not only voted for legislation that would have weakened these protections, but also rallied other Republicans in the House.
McSally was peppered with questions from reporters in Arizona after a campaign event Wednesday afternoon.
"It's not true, it's not true, stop talking about the Democrats' talking points," McSally told a reporter who challenged her in previous votes in the field of health, according to the video of a passionate exchange published by the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call. "Health care is a complex issue."
Other Republicans in tight races, such as Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and Sen. Dean Heller (Nev.), Are delivering a similar message. Wednesday afternoon, Walker tweeted a link to an advertising campaign in which he tells viewers that his wife has diabetes, his brother has heart disease and his mother is a cancer survivor.
"The pre-existing conditions are personal to me," Walker said in the tweet, claiming that these conditions "will always be covered" as long as he is governor.
In fact, Wisconsin is one of 20 states to have filed a lawsuit, arguing that the ACA and its protections against pre-existing diseases were unconstitutional, a legal battle backed by the Trump administration.
The Democrats – who have long shunned their opponents with ads on the subject – are furiously reacting to the latest Republican effort, and several of them on Wednesday accused the president of putting voters in the polls. deviation from power.
"Hello, America," said in a tweet to Trump, Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), Leader of the Senate minority, in which he simply asserted, "It's a lie."
A Washington Post-ABC News poll released earlier this month found that Democrats enjoyed a 16-percentage-point advantage among registered voters on the question of who they trusted to run the polls. together health care. Eighty-two percent of respondents said that health care was "one of the most important issues" or "a very important issue" in their vote for Congress this year.
And a recent study by the Kaiser Family Foundation showed that Democrats had more confidence than Republicans out of two to maintain their pre-existing protections.
What makes it even more difficult for Republicans is that a significant part of their party base continues to support the repeal of the ACA.
According to a Kaiser Family Foundation survey of voters in Florida and Nevada, a plurality of Republicans enrolled in each of the two states of the battlefield said the repeal of the law was the main health care issue in determining their vote for Congress. Second on the list: protect pre-existing conditions.
A recent analysis of the Wesleyan Media Project found that between September 18 and October 15, nearly 55% of TV commercials supporting Democratic candidates were health care-oriented – a messaging offensive that, according to Kirzinger, testifies to the new confidence of the Democrats in this matter.
"In previous cycles, most Democratic candidates did not want to talk about health care. It was not perceived as a winning issue, "she said.
The Republican Party's messages on the issue are decidedly mixed.
In a tweet last week, Trump wrote that "[a]All Republicans support people with pre-existing illnesses and if they do not, they will do it after I talk to them. "
"I'm totally in favor," he added. "In addition, Democrats will destroy your health insurance and I will keep it healthy!"
Still, Trump has repeatedly pledged to repeal the law, known as Obamacare, and lamented the failure of a Republican-led effort to do so last year. Just last week, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Said he wanted to take another step to repeal the health care law after the elections. midterm.
"If we had the votes to start all over again, we would do it," McConnell said in an interview with Reuters, calling his party's failure to repeal the law "the only deception of this Congress from the point of view Republicans. "
At the same time, under a Trump administration rule finalized in August, insurers are allowed to sell short-term health insurance plans that do not have to cover pre-existing illnesses and certain types of health care required by the ACA.
Senate Democrats have missed a voice in their offer this month to reverse the rule, derogating from the less expensive policies as "junk" plans.
With polls showing that a large majority of Americans are in favor of preserving the protection of people with pre-existing disorders, Republican candidates are increasingly seeking to assure voters their support for these protections, in despite a long-term effort led by the GOP to repeal the 2010 law stop in 2013 to try to fund it and dozens of votes in the House to reorganize or remove the law.
Republican strategist Michael Steel, who was previously advisor to former Speaker of the House, John A. Boehner, said the decisive vote of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) On the repeal of the ACA last year "sounded the end of this war and the beginning of a new fight."
In the current battle, he said, Republican candidates should not only focus on criticizing the "Medicare-for-all" plan promoted by some progressives, but also continue to "make it clear" that 39, they support protection against pre-existing conditions.
"That's why Republicans have always said" to repeal and replace, "not just" to repeal, "Steel said." It's still a matter of determining which parts of the ACA make sense. "
Scott Clement contributed to this report.
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