GOP Senators Facing Health Care Blowback At Home
Senate Republicans are back home and hearing from their constituents on health care reform. It's not going well for them.
The Senate left town on Friday with the issue of health care reform hanging in the balance. Rather than take a vote on the Better Care Reconciliation Act, the Senate’s version of the GOP plan to ‘repeal and replace’ the Affordable Care Act, the Senate leadership was forced to pull the bill due to a devastating CBO score, polling showing massive public opposition to the Senate bill, and defections among as many as a dozen Republican Senators consisting of both conservatives and moderates. Senate leadership canceled plans to hold a vote on the bill last week. The divisions among the GOP Caucus proved to be so unbridgeable, in fact, that leadership was unable to adhere to its plan to come up with revisions to the bill before leaving town so that the revised bill could be submitted to the Congressional Budget Office for scoring during the recess. Instead, Senate Republicans headed out of town for a week-long recess, but that doesn’t mean they’re eager to hear from their constituents:
ALDERSON, W.Va. — In normal times, the Fourth of July parade is a fat pitch down the middle for the grinning politician. For instance, here was Senator Joe Manchin III, a Democrat facing re-election next year in a state that President Trump won by 42 points, waving unheckled among the firefighters, beauty queens and county commissioners who streamed up Maple Avenue.
Political disputes have never impinged on the festivities here, said Karen Lobban, 70, who has been involved with Alderson’s parade in one way or another for all of its 56 years.
But, she added, “Things are different now.”
Mr. Manchin’s Republican colleague in West Virginia, Senator Shelley Moore Capito, was not here on Tuesday as she had been two years earlier. She released a YouTube message but had no public events for the day. The Republican senator next door in Ohio, Rob Portman, had none either. Nor did the two Republican senators in Iowa. The parades in Colorado proceeded without Senator Cory Gardner.
It is a tough summer for Senate Republicans, who are trying to combine a long-promised repeal of the Affordable Care Act with a replacement that has, in legislation drafted so far, been as popular as sunburn. Protesters have held sit-ins at Senate offices, phone lines have been jammed and editorial writers have blasted their states’ congressional delegations. Planes have even flown admonitory, if occasionally poorly conceived, banners over state capitals.
Republican senators have had to decide whether public appearances would be fruitful or the crowds hostile. Many lawmakers seem to have given up on town hall-style meetings and parades. Others are still braving them, knowing they may get an earful on the health care bills.
“Never before, in the 15 times that I’ve marched in this parade, have I had people so focused on a single issue,” Senator Susan Collins of Maine, who rejected the latest version of the bill, said in an interview shortly after walking the parade route in Eastport, Me. “I think it’s because health care is so personal.”
On Tuesday, Ms. Collins and the few other Republican senators who ventured out — most of them opponents of the current bill, and most in rather remote locales — were largely rewarded with encouragement to keep fighting.
This may be promising for other senators who are not planning to stay in all week. Ms. Capito and Mr. Portman, for example, have public events set for the coming days. The delay in voting on the Senate bill, which Ms. Capito strongly rebuffed, has taken some of the heat off, though activists in West Virginia said signs had been readied for Tuesday’s parades just in case.
Other Republicans will soon be out and about, and some already have been. Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana was met with chants of “Vote no!” in a Baton Rouge church on Friday as he discussed the state’s recovery from the 2016 floods. Senator Jerry Moran of Kansas will hold three town hall-style meetings this week in the western part of the state, and Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa has scheduled nine as part of his annual tour of the state’s 99 counties. Senator Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania is holding a televised meeting on Wednesday, albeit with an invitation-only audience.
While the receptions they receive may vary, judging by those in the streets on Tuesday, the primary subject will not.
“Health care! Health care! Health care!” Hilary Georgia, a part-time resident of Eastport, cried as Ms. Collins passed the spectators in camp chairs unfolded before neat wooden houses.
Both The Washington Post and The Hill have similar reports and, while there are still several days left in the Senate recess it seems as though most of the Republican members of the Senate are going to avoid putting themselves in situations where they’re likely to get significant blowback from the general public before they return to Washington. This is hardly surprising, of course. We’ve already seen evidence of the public discontent over health care reform in the town halls that many members of the House of Representatives faced while the American Health Care Act was pending in that body, and it’s likely that Senators would likely face the same kind of response now that there’s a reform bill that appears to be just as bad as the AHCA, if not worse, when it comes to the impact that it would have on the ability of Americans to be able to afford health care, especially when it comes to the poor and people with pre-existing conditions.
Despite the fact that they may try to avoid the public this week, though, it’s clear that Republicans in the Senate see the political writing on the wall. The American public as a whole doesn’t like what they’re proposing to do to health care and they’re taking a big political risk if they support it. As Chris Cillizza noted, this doesn’t bode well for the viability of either the Senate bill or the GOP effort to ‘repeal and replace’ the Affordable Care Act. As I’ve said before, Mitch McConnell can only afford to lose two Senators and still get the BCRA passed in the Senate under reconciliation rules that allow him to bypass the normal sixty-vote cloture requirement. The vote last week was canceled because it was clear that there were far more than two Republican Senators opposed to it, possibly as many as a dozen. The contact that these Senators are likely to have with their constituents between now and the time they return to Washington is only likely to solidify the opposition of those Senators already inclined to oppose the bill, and may even cause some Senators on the sidelines to jump to the “no” side.
It’s possible I’m wrong about this, of course. Perhaps Mitch McConnell and the Senate GOP leadership will find a way to navigate through this mess and end up with a bill that can make it through the Senate. As things stand right now, though, that seems quite unlikely, and it becomes less and less likely every day that Senators are away from Washington and back in their home states where they can see for themselves how the public is reacting to this plan. This, of course, is why McConnell wanted to get a vote last week before the Senate headed out of town on its July 4th recess. He knew that the plan was unpopular and that sending his Senators back home would likely mean they’d be leaned on quite heavily to oppose the bill. When he failed to get that vote, he essentially conceded the advantages that a successful vote prior to the recess would have given him. Now, he’ll have to deal with both the reception that the Senators got back home and likely will be additional bad polling on the Senate bill likely to come out over the next week or so. The odds that he’ll be able to keep his caucus together under these conditions seem to me to be fairly low. At this point, though, he’s likely hoping to get something done before the Senate recess that begins at the end of the month, during which Senators will be back home for a month and will come back to town in September having to deal with issues other than health care, such as the budget for the Fiscal Year that begins October 1st. If the Senate hasn’t voted by the time it goes away for August, it’s unlikely they’ll be able to get any health care reform package passed this year, and the Affordable Care Act will remain in effect.
Toomey is a coward and owned lock, stock and barrel by the ‘Club for Growth’ (aka, the club to funnel more cash to the richest). I still can’t believe that my state re-elected him. But then, I still can’t believe my state went for Trump.
It’s hardly a surprise that my dear Senator Rob (Dweeb Boy) Portman is avoiding the public. He boldly came out against the health care bill only after after half a dozen other GOP Senators went before. In 2016 he was initially polling almost even with ex-Gov Ted Strickland but was able to buy a 20 point margin in the election. He’s got five years for the electorate to forget healthcare and every reason to expect generous contributions. His only concern with public opinion is how to get around it. McConnell’s probably already cut a deal with him, a small delay in killing Medicaid and a few bucks for opioids and Portman will fold like a cheap lawn chair.
@bookdragon: Yup. President of the so called Club for Growth 2005 to 2009. And a bankster before that. But I’m sure he’s selling himself as a salt of the earth populist, deeply concerned with the plight of the WWC.
My dear Rob Portman @gVOR08: sold himself as anti trade agreements, after being W’s Trade Representative. He also served as Budget Director “where he advocated a balanced budget” per WIKI. Maybe without him W’s big deficits would have been even bigger.
Boo friggin hoo. It’s literally their job to listen to their constituents. They are being paid to represent these people and their concerns in the government but they don’t want to know what those concerns are. Town halls, appearances, meet-n-greets, et al are essentially mini performance reviews they are having with their bosses aka We the People (remember that meme?). If *you* ducked out of your performance reviews, how well do you think that would go?
Democrats should propose a law saying that X% amount of time a Congresscritter is out of Washington DC should be spent in some sort of working session with their constituents, even when on break / recess. Let’s see the GOP try and pick that one apart. Ducking the voters should not be allowed by law.
I keep remembering Benjamin Franklin’s response to the woman who asked him what he and his colleagues had given the people, and he said: A republic, if you can keep it.
It’s like he knew….
You mean, those noble white working class republicans were UNHAPPY about a bill that guts Medicaid and give $1B to the ultra rich? You mean those salt of the earth types who voted for the (self proclaimed) only republican who didn’t want to cut Medicare and Medicaid and promised better and cheaper care felt betrayed by being lied to?
If this bill only screwed over red states I’d say go for it. It’s the only way they’ll learn. But, since everyone of us will get boned by this we have no choice but to keep calling our senators.
It really makes you wonder. This bill is polling at 12-17% support. How much lower does it need to go before the republicans dare to go against their wealthy patrons?
@KM: We used to have a Congressman that gave free barbecues twice a year. He would give a short talk and then sit down and eat with the people. Lots of people turned out. He also showed up at some of the NASCAR tracks. Now that’s what I call a man of the people. I did not recall anyone hollering at him, throwing stuff (shoes !), or being rude to him. People shared their ideas, problems, suggestions, complaints in a polite manner: mutual respect instead of all this partisan stuff. That is the way thongs were back then.
@Tyrell:
Did that Congressman vote to throw 22 million people off their insurance so he could give a tax cut to rich people?
@Daryl’s other brother Darryl:
You screwed up your talking point. “….tax cut to rich people, kill babies, starve old people and laugh all the way to the bank.”
Yeah, that’s it.
@KM:
A robust protest movement pretty much made sure that any opportunity to speak to our reps was going to become a spectacle of disruptive behavior. They’re still talking to their constituents, just not in ways that can be so easily hijacked.
@James Pearce:
Hijacking can be good or bad. It’s good in that politicians only want to talk about the shiny stuff and will fluff the audience for as long as you let them. Hijacking in that case is disruptive redirecting from the BS they want to talk about to what the audience wants to talk about. It’s also bad in that disruption for the sake of drama makes great talking points and video so it keeps happening. Let’s be honest: sometimes they won’t let you talk unless you raise your voice over them but throwing paint is crossing the line.
Still, the job of a politician is to deal with this. Part and parcel of the position. This is what the People are doing to get attention and they represent the People. It’s not like they didn’t know they’d have nuts to deal with in their district before they ran for office…..
@Guarneri:
Actually…that is it.
Figure #1 in this analysis explains it pretty well.
http://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/89071/2001188-who-gains-and-who-loses-under-the-american-health-care-act.pdf
Besides the people who will needlessly die because of reduced access to health care…Trumpcare also eliminates 1.2 million jobs by 2019 and causes the loss of $200B in lost business output.
But President Snowflake is going to get a yyuuuuuge tax cut.
@Daryl’s other brother Darryl:
Yes, but Guarneri can’t tell the difference between salient facts and talking points. Since he can’t imagine ever saying anything for any other reason than to score points, he projects that onto whoever he is talking at. If he says it’s forecast to rain tomorrow, it’s because he thinks that will somehow strengthen his team and annoy his foes — it has nothing to do with rain.
@KM:
If we’re talking about townhalls, it’s going to be mostly bad.
@James Pearce: The initial “hijacking of town halls” IIRC, was when the Tea Party movement started storming town halls with their “keep your hands off my Medicare/No on Obamacare” signs.
Is everyone’s memory so short that they don’t remember how screeching and horrible those town hall appearances were? And yet suddenly, it’s the fault of “the Resistance” that town halls are noisy affairs?
To be clear, I thought the shouty behavior was awful then, and I think it’s awful now. Figure out how to make a point without losing your mind–or raising your voice to screaming level. It is certainly possible to remain calm, but opposed, to policy.
@Jen: Oh, no, you are definitely not the only one.
@Tyrell:
I would like to hear more about these things at the BBQ event, please!
@Liberal Capitalist: Seen some at the race tracks.
Darlington Raceway – “the track too tough to tame”
The hottest, loudest place I’ve ever been.
(I keep hitting the o instead of the i – darn tiny keyboards !)
@James Pearce: What about their constituents talking to them? Eh? Aren’t they supposed to listen????
@James Pearce: F*ck you, who’s doing the hijacking, the constituents or the Reps? It’s a f*****ing town hall where people can come and ask their rep about that which CONCERNS THEM, not him/her.
@James Pearce: Oh please, don’t blame this on college kids. You are just making yourself sound foolish.
The reason many Republicans are not doing town hall events is because of what house Republicans faced prior to passing their own healthcare bill back in the spring. They couldn’t defend their bill and a lot of their constituents asked them tough questions about the bill and they couldn’t answer them.
Most of these town halls were lively, but respectful. It was no where as bad as they were in 2009 with the Tea Party.
Apparently Ted Cruz decided to forego feedback from his constituents. Rumor has it that he is vacationing in Central Oregon. He visited the High Desert Museum earlier in the week. Other visits included the gated community at Caldera Springs (seems strangely appropriate).
http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2017/07/ted_cruz_vacations_in_central.html
@Guarneri:
Are you still celebrating the fact that Trump supporters had no idea that NPR was trolling them by tweeting out passages from the Declaration of Independence?
@James Pearce: You have now reached the point where your posts are empty and illogical. You complain about the Democrats lack of effective opposition but now state that our appearances at town halls (you know, the events where our representatives invite us to attend and ask questions) is “disruptive.” I personally attended one and read about others in my state and can say with assurance that even Rep. Walden (R) is getting the message and feeling the heat. The questions he was asked were pointed and passionate but none were abusive or “disruptive.” I could feel the intensity in the crowd in Bend, Oregon like a rock concert where the crowd is stamping their feet waiting for the performer. But the audience allowed Walden to finish his answers although he certainly was challenged on them after he finished. What is wrong with this, Pearce? Hint: Nothing and it is effective.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Activist types disrupting townhalls is not an environment conducive to listening.
@Yank:
is because they became an opportunity for activist types more interested in being disruptive than concerned citizens who are interested in communicating with their Congressmen.
@James Pearce:
BS, it’s because they can’t defend a crap bill with less than 20% approval and they are afraid to face their constituents. No matter how much you hate SJWs and want the college kids off your lawn it’s not about them. If the bill were holding at better than 40% approval with 80+% of republicans on board, the college kids and SJWs would still hate it, but the republicans would be happy to hold town halls.
As usual, you are completely full of ****.
The GOP had town halls in the spring and they were very respectful and tame. The problem for them was the couldn’t defend their bill to their constituents.
That is why they stopped, not because of some activist shouting them down.
@Tyrell: “That is the way thongs were back then.”
Before the Tea Party, you mean.
@James Pearce:
Why yes, I remember back in 2009, when I attended a ‘Town Hall’ meeting in my district, the purpose of which was to discuss the impending draft Affordable Care legislation that was in House Committee.
That meeting was hijacked by Tea Party people, of whom 3 middle aged guys stepped up to the mic and denounced our representatives are socialists and Marxists – basically, 45 minutes of vitriol and very little discussion of the draft ACA legislative plan.
I’m sure that you felts, at that time, that it was just manipulated, disruptive staf that Congressional Representatives should have avoided, that Town Halls should not have been held for that reason.
@Grewgills:
@Yank:
Republican congresspeople aren’t afraid to face their constituents. They just do not want to provide activists with more opportunities to protest, and I don’t blame them.
Perhaps you heard about the disabled protesters who got arrested outside Cory Gardener’s office. (Jeff Flake and Mitch McConnell were afflicted by protesters of the same group.) If they protested at a Democrat Senator’s office, the Dem might think, “Oooh, these guys really care about this issue. Let me see if we can find common ground.”
But try that tactic at a Republican’s office and they’ll think, “What is wrong with this person? Security!”
Stop cheering on activists whose only accomplishment is getting themselves arrested.
Wow, you are obtuse.
The issue is the bill period. Most of these GOP representatives can’t explain why they support a bill that is basically a giant tax cut funded through gutting Medicaid. There is a reason why McConnell kept the entire process under wraps, what is in this bill isn’t popular and they know it.
And like I said, house Republicans held town halls in the spring that were lively, yet respectful. The representatives had a hard time defending their bill and answering their constituents questions (and for the record the majority of these people weren’t activist, but older/middle americans with families.).
You can keep trying to pin this on SJW and college kids, but the issue is the bill and anyone who isn’t ignorant can see that. They can’t defend this bill or process and don’t want to give Democrats ad materials with their terrible response and lies.
@Yank:
Rather than assuming I’m obtuse, assume I get the point and disagree with it.
If this bill goes down, and that’s not yet a foregone conclusion, it won’t be because a bunch of liberal activists harangued Republican congresspeople at townhalls to vote against it.
I’m sure Republicans can feel even better about avoiding meeting their constituents when they have people like you to excuse their cowardly behavior…this pathetic excuse that activists should not be allowed to have opportunities to protest is undemocratic…poor, poor congresspeople…they should only meet with people who are fawning and docile…
Shame on those pesky activists for being so intemperate in response to a bill that will kill thousands of americans and harm millions more, with all the savings going to a tax cut for the Investor Class. They should be more meek and reserved.
Why do you keep making the assumption that the people at these town halls are liberal activists? They are by in large not and the GOP bill is unpopular with both Democrats and Republican voters.
@An Interested Party:
No, it’s “activists should not disrupt townhall meetings.”
Applied evenly.
@James Pearce:
The activists have been around since well before this last election and republicans have had town halls. The activists are no more active now than they were this past Spring and were arguably more active in the wake of the election, yet republicans still held town halls. What has changed between then and now? Seriously man, I know you HATE liberal activists, you are perpetually annoyed by college kids, you can’t stand SJWs, but their behavior isn’t why republicans crafted a terrible bill in secret and their actions aren’t why republicans aren’t holding town halls and if they see anyone it is only carefully selected supporters. They saw the town halls after the House bill. It wasn’t about annoying off point protesters, it was about regular people, mostly lower middle class white folk asking tough questions that they couldn’t answer. That is why they are hiding.
Stop, take a breath, and realize that all the world’s ills aren’t the fault of SJWx, college kids and other assorted liberal activists.
I wonder how many Republicans realize that they’ve already lost the healthcare argument? Most people in this country now believe that healthcare is pretty much a right that the government should insure that everyone has…it’s only a matter of time until we have a single-payer system…
@An Interested Party: Oh, they knew they lost the ideological debate the minute Obama won reelection. The GOP, like the majority of the country, were caught off guard with Trump winning. They never truly thought they would actually get a chance to repeal the law, so they never bothered with coming up with a coherent policy.
I understand the position of TPTB in the GOP – I don’t have enough $$$ to buy their votes, and although I’m a decade younger than most of them, I’m too old and poor to be allowed to live. Our masters have forgotten the rationale behind the rich paying taxes and supporting their lesser brethren – it keeps us poor folk from stringing their a**** up from the lamp posts!
@flat earth luddite: This is what I’ve said over and over again: progressive taxation/safety nets/whatever are the insurance rich people pay to make sure they don’t end up against the wall when the revolution comes….
You’d think people who claim to be “conservative” would at least read some history….