Campaign Action
Behold the power of resistance: Your marches, your phone calls and visits to Republican lawmakers are getting the message through. Those Republicans, meeting this week in Philadelphia to try to plot out a path on Obamacare repeal and replacement, are well aware of the political danger they are courting. That goes for Planned Parenthood defunding, as well. A recording of one of the sessions leaked to The Washington Post, and confirmed by attendees, tells the story.
Senators and House members expressed a range of concerns about the task ahead: how to prepare a replacement plan that can be ready to launch at the time of repeal; how to avoid deep damage to the health insurance market; how to keep premiums affordable for middle-class families; even how to avoid the political consequences of defunding Planned Parenthood, the women’s health-care organization, as many Republicans hope to do with the repeal of the ACA.
“We’d better be sure that we’re prepared to live with the market we’ve created [with repeal],” said Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.). “That’s going to be called Trumpcare. Republicans will own that lock, stock and barrel, and we’ll be judged in the election less than two years away.” […]
Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) worried that one idea floated by Republicans—a refundable tax credit—won’t work for middle-class families that can’t afford to prepay their premiums and wait for a tax refund.
And Rep. John Faso (R-N.Y.,) a freshman congressman from the Hudson Valley, warned strongly against using the repeal of the ACA to also defund Planned Parenthood. “We are just walking into a gigantic political trap if we go down this path of sticking Planned Parenthood in the health insurance bill,” he said. “If you want to do it somewhere else, I have no problem, but I think we are creating a political minefield for ourselves — House and Senate.” […]
Faso continued: “Health insurance is going to be tough enough for us to deal with without having millions of people on social media come to Planned Parenthood’s defense and sending hundreds of thousands of new donors to the Democratic Senate and Democratic congressional campaign committees. So I would just urge us to rethink this.”
The message from Senate Democrats has also been received—there will be no bailout from them, so whatever Republicans do, they own it. So now, seven years after the fact and when they're barreling down a path already set toward repeal, they're realizing that they not only don't know what happens next, getting out of it is going to be very complicated: "While the chairmen of several key committees sketched out various proposals, they did not have a clear plan on how to keep markets viable while also requiring insurers to cover everyone who seeks insurance."
But here's what's really telling in the parts of this recording quoted by the Post—just one member, Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-NJ) talked about what's going to happen to the more than 20 million people who have coverage and might lose it. "We’re telling those people that we’re not going to pull the rug out from under them," he said, "and if we do this too fast, we are in fact going to pull the rug out from under them." The rest of the discussion is entirely about the political risks these Republicans face, not the tens of thousands of people who might die, every year, when their coverage is ripped away.
But hey, fear for their personal political futures is far more motivating to Republicans than compassion for the constituents, so keep making those calls. Keep showing up at their offices. Keep letting them know that it's their asses on the line in 2018.