Axios points up Sen. Dean Heller's (R-NV) ongoing Obamacare repeal/replace nightmare. He's widely considered the most vulnerable of all the senators up for re-election in 2018, and is thus on everyone's target list. That pressure showed in the run-up to the failed vote on repealing Obamacare a few weeks ago, where first he was against it, then spent a week trying to hide from reporters, and eventually decided to vote for it, even after Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) had made it possible for him to vote no and not be blamed for killing it.
Now Heller's going to be actually called upon to legislate in the best interests of the people of Nevada, because there's an Obamacare crisis of the Republican party's own making brewing there.
The Nevada senator's torturous rendezvous with health care politics isn't over. Of the 17 counties listed in the latest Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Service map that might have no Affordable Care Act insurers at all next year, 14 were in—you guessed it—Nevada.
Sen. Lamar Alexander, chairman of the Senate health committee, and Democratic Sen. Patty Murray are pushing hard for a bipartisan short-term stabilization package in September. Conservative groups have all but already branded such a package an "insurer bailout." […]
Nevada is a purple state that went for Hillary Clinton, and two different former GOP Senate aides told me without hesitation that Heller should make sure he's part of any individual market stabilization effort. But Heller has a primary opponent from the right, and it's already become a given that he misplayed his hand over the last few months.
He was on the right track, at least as far as Nevada voters are concerned, when he stood up with the state's Gov. Brian Sandoval and said "no." He had all the cover he needed for steadfast opposition to the bill as long as he remained adhered to Sandoval's hip. But then the big money—in the form of Trump allies and big Republican funders Sheldon Adelson and Steve Wynn—stepped in and Heller caved.
Now that true-believer Trumpist Danny Tarkanian has stepped in to primary Heller, his political life is even more uncertain. He deserves every minute of it.
Please give $1 to each of our Senate funds so that Republican senators—especially Heller—know there'll be a price to pay for their votes to repeal health care.