We're used to Republicans lying about health care. They've been doing it for eight years now. First, when it was "repeal and replace," they insisted they had a plan for replacing the Affordable Care Act. After year after year in which they offered no plan, they kind of just focused on the "repeal" part. Then when forced to put up by the popular vote loser getting into the White House, they scraped together some bits and pieces and said it was a replacement. They lied when they said it would be as comprehensive as the ACA when it comes to consumer protections, and they're lying now when they say they all want to protect people with pre-existing conditions, the linch pin of the ACA and its popularity.
Look at Republican Rep. Martha McSally, who's running for the open Senate seat in Arizona against Democratic Rep. Kyrsten Sinema. "I have voted to protect pre-existing conditions," she tells a reporter pressing her on the issue. When he points out that the Trumpcare bill she voted for would weaken those protections, she just blatantly lies. "It's not true. It's not true. It's not true. Stop parroting Democrat [sic] talking points." When that fails, she resorts to telling reporters that health care "doesn't matter" to voters and they should ask her about something else. Someone is getting just a little bit testy here. By the way, McSally is the one who so famously told her Republican colleagues meeting just before they took the Obamacare repeal vote last year that they needed to get this "fucking thing" done. She seems nice.
Some Republicans in tight races aren't just lying about their own voting records. They're lying about their Democratic challengers—and here it gets a little meta—saying the Democrats are lying when they call out Republicans for lying. So far the Washington Post's fact checker, Glenn Kessler, has found six Republicans doing this.
None of this is a surprise. It's what they do. They lie. But the pace and the magnitude and the volume of their lying tells you just how desperate they are right now. Let's keep it that way.
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