This afternoon, the Washington Examiner reported that Ted Cruz is calling on Republicans to repeal the Affordable Care Act through reconciliation, a partisan process which will result in millions losing their coverage, increased premiums and weaker protections for pre-existing conditions.
Senator Ted Cruz: “The biggest unfinished task is Obamacare. We need to finish the job.”
Senator Lisa Murkowski publicly objected to this.
Senator Lisa Murkowski: “I don’t think we should be spending time trying to do repeal and replace of ObamaCare.”
Senator Collins, do you stand with Ted Cruz or Lisa Murkowski?
Washington, DC – Following Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski’s statement that Republicans should not revisit their failed Affordable Care Act repeal quest in 2018, Protect Our Care Campaign Chair Leslie Dach released the following statement:
“Senator Murkowski is right: Congressional Republicans need to move on from their war on health care and stop pushing partisan repeal bills. Enough is enough – it’s time for Republicans like Donald Trump and Ted Cruz to move on from their war on health care and start working on the bipartisan health care solutions that Americans want and deserve.”
Washington, DC – Today, the Washington Examiner reported that Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) told the paper in an interview that Republicans need to “finish the job” and repeal the Affordable Care Act through reconciliation, and that he has been meeting with GOP senators previously opposed to repeal. Protect Our Care Campaign Director Brad Woodhouse issued the following statement in response: “Ted Cruz’s views on health care today are yet again wildly out-of-touch with the American public. Poll after poll has shown that the overwhelming majority of Americans prefer the Affordable Care Act over the GOP’s repeal agenda. Instead of listening to the American people and moving forward on bipartisan improvements to strengthen markets and lower premiums, however, Senator Cruz continues to push partisan repeal. It’s time to find out if other Republican senators agree with Ted Cruz that the GOP should continue its war on health care, the number one issue on voters’ minds– an effort that will result in millions more losing their coverage, and leave everyone else with higher costs and weaker protections – or if there is a better path forward. Will Senators like Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and John McCain succumb to pressure from the likes of Senator Cruz and lobbying from Senator Graham, further worsening the GOP’s standing with another secretive, partisan repeal process, or will they say enough is enough and call for an end to the GOP’s war on our health care?”
Washington, DC – After the Senate voted to confirm Alex Azar as the Trump Administration’s Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), Protect Our Care Campaign Director Brad Woodhouse issued the following statement:
“As the victims of the Trump Administration’s war on health care keep piling up, Senate Republicans just confirmed Big Pharma lobbyist Alex Azar to become President Trump’s sabotage sidekick at HHS. Throughout his confirmation process, Azar lied about the Trump Administration’s Affordable Care Act sabotage while embracing the Republican agenda to take coverage from millions of Americans, raise costs for millions more and gut protections for people with pre-existing conditions. Even as Donald Trump and the GOP install an anti-ACA Big Pharma lobbyist to lead HHS, the American people continue to reject their harmful agenda. Nearly 9 million people signed up for HealthCare.gov coverage despite every obstacle this Administration threw at them, and the ACA is more popular than ever. Enough is enough – it’s time for the GOP to come to the table and work with Democrats on bipartisan measures to stabilize the marketplace and expand coverage, just as the American people have said they want. It’s time for Donald Trump, Alex Azar and Congressional Republicans to end their war on America’s health care.”
Washington, DC – After former Congressman Patrick Kennedy, a member of President Trump’s Opioid Commission, said this Administration’s “efforts to address the epidemic are tantamount to reshuffling chairs on the Titanic,” and other leading advocates spoke out against the Administration’s nonresponse, Protect Our Care Campaign Director Brad Woodhouse released the following statement:
“With members of Trump’s own commission decrying the President’s non-response to the raging opioid epidemic, Republicans must finally face up to this Administration’s failure to confront the nation’s most urgent health care crisis. Despite his campaign-trail promises, Trump has done worse than nothing: his attacks on the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid, and the Office of National Drug Control Policy are actively sabotaging Americans’ access to addiction treatment. Enough is enough: Congressional Republicans need to end their partisan war on health care, stand up against President Trump’s sabotage, and put their money where their mouths are on the opioid epidemic – or else admit that they are making this crisis worse.”
CNN // Wayne Drash and Nadia Kounang // January 23, 2018
The Republican-led Congress has turned the work of the president’s opioid commission into a “charade” and a “sham,” a member of the panel told CNN. “Everyone is willing to tolerate the intolerable — and not do anything about it,” said former Democratic Rep. Patrick Kennedy, who was one of six members appointed to the bipartisan commission in March. “I’m as cynical as I’ve ever been about this stuff.”
If you listen to President Donald Trump’s words about the opioid epidemic, he seems to understand it’s an emergency. He declared it as one late in 2017. And he has repeatedly promised, as president and on the campaign trail, that he will do something about it — that he would “spend the money,” and that “the number of drug users and the addicted will start to tumble downward over a period of years.” If you look at Trump’s actions, well, it’s a very different story. There has been no move by Trump’s administration to actually spend more money on the opioid crisis. Key positions in the administration remain unfilled, even without nominees in the case of the White House’s drug czar office and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). And although Trump’s emergency declaration was renewed last week, it has led to essentially no action since it was first signed — no significant new resources, no major new initiatives.
The week, as much of the focus in Washington shifted to DACA and negotiations in Congress over a continuing resolution, the Trump Administration continued its unprecedented assault on the American health care system.
While your attention was focused elsewhere, here’s a summary of what happened this week in sabotage:
ATTACKS ON MEDICAID
As the dust settled around the Trump HHS’s approval of Kentucky’s worst-in-the-nation Medicaid waiver, experts dug into the fundamental ways it signals an end to Medicaid’s legacy:
As Margot Sanger-Katz notes: “Kentucky’s new Medicaid waiver will ask low-income people to jump over hurdles to keep their coverage. Evidence suggests that many will fail … Kentucky officials argue that the changes will give beneficiaries more dignity and promote personal responsibility. But they also estimate that around 100,000 fewer people will be enrolled in the program by the end of five years.”
Meanwhile, Republicans opened a new front in their war on Medicaid. Yesterday, Senator Ron Johnson held a sham hearing to try to smear Medicaid by blaming it for the opioid crisis — when in fact Medicaid is one of our most important tools to curb the epidemic. Fortunately, few were fooled:
Newsweek: “The Republican argument is flawed because the Medicaid expansion began in 2014, and opioid addiction was declared an epidemic by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2011.”
Washington Post: “While conservatives have noted that overdose deaths are much higher among people inside the program than those outside it, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, they’ve not been able to prove Medicaid actually leads to opioid abuse.”
Los Angeles Times: “The Republican campaign against Medicaid could only make the opioid crisis worse. That’s because Medicaid pays for a huge proportion of opioid treatments, covering fully one-third of those with addiction problems … Johnson and his fellow Republicans in Congress seem determined to impose cuts on the program, even though the benefits it renders are crystal-clear. Wednesday’s hearing did achieve one benefit, for all that: It showed how threadbare their arguments are.”
ATTACKS ON EMPLOYER COVERAGE
On Monday, New York Times reported that the GOP’s next health care sabotage scheme will remove the requirement that employers of over 50 workers offer health coverage for their employees. Such a move could yank care away from millions more Americans, while increasing government spending:
“The Affordable Care Act was built on a framework of shared responsibility … If you get rid of the employer mandate, you will see people lose coverage from their employers.”
ATTACKS ON CRITICAL HEALTH PROGRAMS
Congressional Republicans released a Continuing Resolution proposal that continues their heartless strategy of using children’s health insurance as a bargaining chip. Their bill also attempts to delay Affordable Care Act taxation provisions that benefit big corporations, while ignoring critical expired programs that support essential providers. These include community health centers and hospitals that serve lower-income communities. Some of these critical provider systems are facing threats of closure due to the ongoing uncertainty caused by the Republican Congress..
As Politico reported, GOP Congressional leaders considered including the badly-needed funding – then decided not to:
Knowing the vote is close, Ryan, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California and other GOP leaders debated on Wednesday morning whether to add more provisions to the package, such as funding for community health centers. In the end, they decided to move ahead with the package as is.
As this week’s CR brinksmanship showed, Republicans continue to prioritize partisan politics over their constituents’ health care.
SABOTAGE TAKES A TOLL
On Tuesday, Gallup found that America’s uninsured rate jumped during Trump’s first year in office for the first time in a decade, causing 3.2 million Americans to lose their care.
If this week’s news is any indication, that number could climb as the Republican war on health care continues into 2018.
This morning, Sen. Ron Johnson held a hearing at his Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee ostensibly to discuss the opioid epidemic. Instead, it quickly delved into a showing of right-wing talking points, falsely claiming that Medicaid expansion – ensuring more access to health care – is causing this epidemic.
What are the problems with this Republican theory?
CDC: “There Is No Evidence Medicaid Leads To Opioid Abuse.” “The Republican argument is flawed because the Medicaid expansion began in 2014, and opioid addiction was declared an epidemic by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2011. The federal science agency has also said there is no evidence that Medicaid leads to opioid abuse.” [Newsweek, 1/17/18]
Vox: “This Claim Runs Into A Basic Problem: The Concept Of Time.” “But this claim runs into a basic problem: the concept of time. Medicaid didn’t expand under Obamacare until 2014 — well after opioid overdose deaths started rising (in the late 1990s), after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2011 declared the crisis an epidemic, and as the crisis became more about illicit opioids, such as heroin and fentanyl, rather than conventional opioid painkillers. ‘It’s pretty ridiculous,’ Andrew Kolodny, an opioid policy expert at Brandeis University who’s scheduled to testify at the Senate hearing, told me.” [Vox, 1/17/18]
David Wyman, Georgetown University Law Center: “Just Because A Precedes B Doesn’t Mean That A Causes B. That’s Statistics 101.” “The witnesses included one anti-Medicaid ideologue, two local prosecutors who testified that they’ve seen a lot of addicts in their work and lots of them seem to be on Medicaid, and two experts who, tactlessly, pointed out that the causes of the opioid epidemic are many and complex, that it started years before Medicaid expansion, and that it involves patients and doctors in Medicare and private insurance as well as the uninsured… Efforts to demonize Medicaid expansion because it was launched as the opioid crisis really took off confuse correlation with causation, David Hyman of the Georgetown University Law Center warned Johnson’s committee. ‘Just because A precedes B doesn’t mean that A causes B,’ he said. ‘That’s statistics 101.’” [Los Angeles Times, 1/17/18]
Do Republicans pushing this theory have any actual evidence to back it up?
Washington Post: “They’ve Not Been Able To Prove Medicaid Actually Leads To Opioid Abuse. On The Contrary, [Medicaid Expansion] Has Given More Americans Access To Addiction Treatment.” “So, who’s right here? There’s little data to draw from, since Medicaid was expanded only recently under the ACA. But while conservatives have noted that overdose deaths are much higher among people inside the program than those outside it, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, they’ve not been able to prove Medicaid actually leads to opioid abuse. On the contrary, as Medicaid advocates note, expanding the program to include childless adults earning up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level has given more Americans access to addiction treatment. The program, which provided coverage to 3 in 10 people dealing with opioid addiction in 2015, covers outpatient treatment and inpatient detoxification, among other services, for substance use disorder.” [Washington Post, 1/17/18]
Could this theory lead to drastic conclusions which are squarely at odds with public health?
Katherine Baicker, University Of Chicago Harris School Of Public Policy Dean: “I Don’t Think Anybody Would Suggest Because Overprescribing Of Opioids Poses A Series Health Risk, People Shouldn’t Go See The Doctor.” “If [Republicans] argue against Medicaid based on the idea that it potentially allows more patients to get prescriptions for opioids, they could use that same reasoning to oppose expansion of private health insurance. Expanding health insurance of any variety increases people’s access to health care. Much of that care is beneficial; some may not be, Katherine Baicker, dean of the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy, told me. ‘I don’t think anybody would suggest because overprescribing of opioids poses a series health risk, people shouldn’t go see the doctor,’ Baicker said.” [Washington Post, 1/17/18]
What did the hearing accomplish?
Los Angeles Times: Wednesday’s Hearing “Showed How Threadbare [Republicans’] Arguments Are.” “The Republican campaign against Medicaid could only make the opioid crisis worse. That’s because Medicaid pays for a huge proportion of opioid treatments, covering fully one-third of those with addiction problems. Most of that spending is in expansion states — in fact, it’s possible that the prevalance of opioid addiction in some states may have helped prompt them to accept expansion (another example of how the relationship between addiction and Medicaid may have been misread). The necessity of continuing Medicaid expansion to address the opioid crisis was made forcibly by Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, both Republicans, last year when congressional Republicans were working hard to eviscerate the program. Johnson and his fellow Republicans in Congress seem determined to impose cuts on the program, even though the benefits it renders are crystal-clear. Wednesday’s hearing did achieve one benefit, for all that: It showed how threadbare their arguments are.” [Los Angeles Times, 1/17/18]
Ultimately then, why did this hearing take place?
Newsweek: Sen. Johnson “Read An Article In Commentary, A Neoconservative Magazine.” “But in the end, even Senator Johnson acknowledged that the purpose of the hearing was a bit baffling. ‘People may be scratching their heads saying, ‘Why is Department of Homeland Security holding a hearing on the opioid crisis and Medicaid?’’ he said at the beginning of the meeting. He went on to explain that he had read an article in Commentary, a neoconservative magazine, that piqued his interest on the topic and asked his staff to compile a report and schedule a hearing on the topic.” [Newsweek, 1/17/18]
Most importantly, does this theory have the potential to cause significant damage to a population in urgent need of care?
Vox: “Republicans May Be In Fact Undermining A Potential Solution To The Overdose Crisis.” “Other evidence, meanwhile, suggests that Medicaid could actually act as a solution to the opioid crisis — because Medicaid, by expanding access to addiction treatment, could help stem the tide of addiction and overdose deaths. So by using this new hearing and report to potentially attack Medicaid, Republicans may be in fact undermining a potential solution to the overdose crisis.” [Vox, 1/17/18]
So there you have it. While millions of Americans struggle with the scourge of opioid addiction, and the White House leaves this epidemic in the hands of a lying, underqualified 24-year-old, Sen. Johnson continues to pontificate right-wing talking points he read in a magazine. Perhaps moving forward he’ll listen to the experts instead of pushing forward a false, ideologically-driven narrative that harms Americans.
Our newly completed survey among a representative national cross section of voters clearly shows that healthcare will be a defining issue in the 2018 elections and the healthcare policies of President Trump and the Republican Congress will be a very significant liability for GOP candidates.
These findings are based on 1,000 interviews nationwide conducted January 3 to 7, 2018, among a sample of 2016 voters, 49% of whom say they voted for Hillary Clinton and 46% of whom say they voted for President Trump.
1. Healthcare far exceeds any other issue as an important driver of voting preferences, with over half of all voters identifying healthcare as one of their top priorities in the 2018 congressional elections.
Fully 54% choose healthcare as one of the two issues that will be the most important to them in deciding how to vote for Congress, compared with 29% for the economy, 28% for taxes, 18% for immigration, 18% for education, 17% for government spending, 12% for national defense, and 11% for terrorism.
These results highlight the durability of healthcare as a powerful concern for voters, even when healthcare legislation is not front and center in the news. In our two previous readings in May 2017 and August 2017, 55% and 57% respectively selected healthcare as one of their top two issues.
Healthcare is the most frequently cited priority among Democrats (68%), independents (54%), and Republicans (38%). It is particularly important to African-American voters (66%) and to white women voters, whether they are college graduates (62%) or non-college graduates (59%).
2. Along with the tax bill, healthcare policies are a top-of-mind reason that many voters disapprove of the job Republicans are doing as the majority party in Congress. Indeed, there is widespread disapproval of Republicans in Congress with regard to their handling of healthcare, even among many rank-and-file Republican voters.
Even after the passage of the tax bill, fully 61% of voters disapprove of the job Republicans are doing as the majority party in Congress. When those who disapprove are asked to volunteer why, they most frequently mention Republican tax policies (43%), Republican healthcare policies (36%), and the Republicans’ general lack of concern for average Americans (11%).
While disapproval for the Republicans’ overall performance is high, disapproval for the GOP’s performance on healthcare is even higher (72%). Negative opinions about the way Republicans in Congress have handled healthcare cross party lines, with 93% of Democrats, 78% of independents, and 45% of rank-and-file Republicans expressing disapproval.
3. Republicans’ efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act are unpopular with voters and a political drag on them in this election year. Democrats increase their electoral advantage when they highlight their position of making improvements in the ACA while keeping what works. And it is clear that continued GOP efforts to repeal the ACA will exacerbate their political problems, given that two-thirds of voters agree on this issue that, “enough is enough.”
Just 35% of voters say they have a favorable opinion of the bills proposed by Republicans in Congress to repeal the Affordable Care Act, while 52% have an unfavorable opinion of them. By 47% to 38%, voters say they would be less likely to reelect their members of Congress if they voted for the bills by President Trump and Republicans in Congress to repeal and replace the ACA. Voters who are undecided on how to vote for Congress this year say by 12 points that they would be less likely to reelect someone who voted for repeal and replace.
Additionally, the poll results indicate that there is widespread frustration with Republicans’ repetitive efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Fully 68% of voters agree with this statement: “Enough is enough—President Trump and the Republicans in Congress should stop trying to repeal and undermine the Affordable Care Act and start working across party lines on commonsense solutions that build on the current law.” Fifty-three percent (53%) strongly agree. There has been a 10-point increase in the share of voters who see President Trump as actively trying to make the Affordable Care Act fail (to 52%, with 28% saying he is not trying to make it fail and 20% not sure). By 55% to 45%, voters say problems with the Affordable Care Act are occurring mainly because Trump and Republicans in Congress are trying to sabotage the law rather than because it is a bad law.
As other polls have shown, Democrats head into the 2018 midterm elections with a clear advantage. In this poll, among all voters who cast ballots in the 2016 presidential election, Democrats have a seven-point margin (44% Democrat, 37% Republican) in a generic trial heat. The Democrats’ true advantage likely will be much greater, given that 75% of Clinton voters say they are certain to vote in 2018, compared with just 60% of Trump voters.
An election that focuses on healthcare and GOP repeal efforts would widen the Democrats’ margin. When given a choice between a Democrat who wants to keep what works in the Affordable Care Act and make improvements in it and a Republican who wants to repeal and replace Obamacare, voters prefer the Democrat by 18 points (59% to 41%). Those who are undecided in the generic trial heat prefer the Democrat in this match-up by 68% to 32%.
4. The Republicans have a long list of severe vulnerabilities on healthcare that go beyond their repeated efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and their healthcare policies on many fronts create very major concerns among large majorities of voters. These are the highest testing criticisms of the healthcare policies of President Trump and the Republicans in Congress.
These are the highest testing criticisms of the healthcare policies of President Trump and the Republicans in Congress.
Sixty-nine percent (69%) of women voters voice very major concerns about GOP policies that would allow insurance companies to charge women more than men for their health insurance. Other Trump policies are widely rejected by voters. The reaction is especially negative, for example, when voters are informed that, “the Trump administration is allowing insurance companies to sell plans that do not meet the requirements of the Affordable Care Act because they do not have to cover essential health benefits such as cancer treatments and maternity care and can deny coverage altogether for preexisting conditions.” Three quarters of all voters disapprove of this policy, including 53% who strongly disapprove.
5. The litany of bad Republican policies on healthcare ladders up to a very damaging overarching narrative for the GOP. Indeed, a large majority agree that the sum of the Trump-GOP policies shows that there is a “Republican war on healthcare.” Just as important, the healthcare issue focuses attention on two dominant weaknesses for the Republicans—their reputation for catering to special interests, and their support for a tax bill that gave huge cuts to the wealthy and large corporations.
Seventy-four percent (74%) of voters agree with the following statement, including 51% who strongly agree: “When you add it all up—taking away coverage from millions of people, weakening protections for people with preexisting conditions, allowing insurance companies to charge more if you are older or a woman, and making big cuts to Medicare and Medicaid—there is a Republican war on healthcare today.” Even 48% of Trump voters agree that there is a Republican war on healthcare.
The notion of a Republican war on healthcare is credible to voters because it speaks to two other important conclusions voters have about Republicans:
They take huge amounts of campaign funding from the insurance industry and the pharmaceutical industry, and they are catering to the special interests that give them money (77% say this is believable, including 51% who say it is very believable).
They want to cut funding for healthcare in order to pay for the huge tax cuts they passed for the wealthy and large corporations (72% say this is believable, including 48% who say it is very believable).
While voters also believe that Republicans in Congress are motivated by a desire to undo everything that President Obama did while he was in office, even more concerning to them are the GOP’s focus on cutting taxes for the wealthy and the large corporations and its desire to cater to the special interests that fund their campaigns.
In response to the New York Times revealing that the GOP’s next health care sabotage scheme would remove the requirement that ensures employers with over 50 employees provide health care to their employees, Protect Our Care Campaign Director Brad Woodhouse issued the following statement:
“Most Americans get their health insurance through their employer but Republicans want to let employers off the hook to provide it. The latest scheme from Congressional Republicans is to allow employers to no longer provide insurance and force people to deal with the consequences on their own.
“While they wait to force through their full health care repeal legislation, they continue to sabotage the system and employer-based coverage is the newest front. After they gave billions in tax breaks to wealthy corporations, maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that they want to let those same corporations cancel their health care policies for employees.
“Enough is enough is enough. It’s time for Republicans to stop their war on America’s health care.”
WASHINGTON, DC – After Politico released a late-night bombshell report revealing that the Trump Administration left a paper trail of their plans to sabotage health care, Protect Our Care Campaign Chairman Leslie Dach released the following statement:
“President Trump left behind a smoking gun in this newly revealed document, and now Americans can see beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Republican plot to sabotage our care started on Day One of this Administration. This newly revealed document confirms what we knew all along – Republicans never had any plan to improve health care for Americans; they always intended to rip apart affordable coverage and vital insurance protections root and branch. After today, President Trump and Congressional Republicans can no longer deny the truth: from the outset, they were hell-bent on waging a spiteful war against Americans’ health care.”
