Now, though, Arkansas Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor, who's facing a tough re-election contest against an opponent who has assailed him for supporting the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, is finally punching back. He just released a powerful TV ad discussing his 1997 bout with a rare form of cancer called clear-cell sarcoma, highlighting his insurer's initial refusal to cover the experimental operation that saved his lower leg.
“No one should be fighting an insurance company while you're fighting for your life,” Pryor says in the ad. “That's why I helped pass a law to prevent insurance companies from canceling your policy if you get sick or deny coverage for pre-existing conditions.”
It's notable that Pryor's opponent, GOP Rep. Tom Cotton, didn't criticize the ad. Instead, he agreed there were problems with the insurance system prior to passage of the reform law, including many cases in which people with pre-existing conditions had trouble getting coverage. But then he returned to the script, calling for Obamacare's repeal.
Cotton, however, faces the reality that Arkansas' uninsured rate has fallen from 22.5% in 2013 to 12.4% in mid-2014. (He claims he hasn't seen that report.) Like other Republican candidates in states where hundreds of thousands of residents have gained Medicaid coverage, he dodges when asked whether he supports keeping the expansion.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), also facing a tough re-election contest, similarly has ducked on whether he favors preserving his state's successful state-run exchange and Medicaid expansion. Kentucky's uninsured rate plummeted from 20.4% last year to 11.9% in mid-2014. After calling Obamacare the “worst piece of legislation to pass in the last 50 years,” McConnell played coy when asked what should happen to Kentucky's exchange. “I think that's unconnected to my comments about the overall question,” he said.
Other Republicans imitating ostriches include Senate candidates Scott Brown in New Hampshire, Thom Tillis in North Carolina, Terri Lynn Land in Michigan and Gov. Rick Scott in Florida.
“Even those Republican candidates who try to feed red meat to the base by talking repeal, then turn around and say, 'We'll find ways to keep what we like,'” said Norm Ornstein, a congressional scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. “They are going through remarkable contortions to make those conflicting promises go together.”
But it isn't necessarily working. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who has blocked Medicaid expansion, is among the most endangered incumbents, while Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, who accepted expansion, look like easy winners in November, Sam Wang of the Princeton Election Consortium recently wrote.
That's why some conservatives are urging Republicans to put forward their own healthcare reform package. Manhattan Institute senior fellow Dr. Avik Roy just offered an ambitious plan to move Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries into the Obamacare exchanges. Republicans, he argued, need to abandon their crusade to repeal Obamacare and instead remodel it into a platform for market-based reform that slashes federal spending and taxes.
But this is not likely to happen. The more pertinent question is whether Democrats will follow Mark Pryor's lead and effectively remind voters why they hated the old health insurance system, and how Democrats gave the country something better.
Follow Harris Meyer on Twitter: @MHHmeyer
