Nationally, the health-care landscape is unsettled in the aftermath of the failed GOP push to repeal the ACA. Democrats acknowledge the law has problems but want to repair and expand it; Republicans are still pushing to dismantle it. Adding to this volatile mix, insurance premiums are set to be announced shortly before the November election.
Minnesota officials embraced the ACA, and Democrats believe a backlash against the Republican repeal efforts gives them an advantage there. They are pillorying Republicans like Rep. Erik Paulsen on social media for backing the repeal. Near a highway in suburban Minnetonka, a yellow billboard funded by a Democratic super-PAC links Mr. Paulsen to higher health-care costs.
His challenger, Democrat Dean Phillips, an heir to a liquor fortune, has been driving around the district in a vintage 1960s red-white-and-blue milk truck, handing out lemonade on warm days.
“I believe there’s a role for government in health-care coverage,” said Mr. Phillips, who supports a plan to make Medicare available to everyone. “Health care is one of my top priority issues. I drive the truck and talk to people—health care with very few exceptions is on everybody’s mind.”
Mr. Paulsen’s office didn’t respond to a request for an interview. On his campaign website, the congressman says he supports such “bipartisan, common sense” ideas as allowing the sale of insurance across state lines and ensuring coverage for people with pre-existing conditions.
In Minnesota and elsewhere, Democratic candidates are responding to a push from party activists to move beyond the ACA and expand coverage further. The risk, party operatives say privately, is that while embracing this position could help candidates win primaries, it could be less popular among centrist voters in a general election.
Republicans, noting that the ACA remains unpopular in many places, have their own playbook. They blame rising insurance premiums on the law, often called Obamacare, and tout their success in repealing the ACA’s penalty on people without health coverage. The expanded health options touted by Democrats, they say, would increase taxes and limit choices.
Republican Jim Hagedorn, who’s running in a congressional district south of the Twin Cities, said farmers who used to be Democrats feel the party has left them.
“The top-down government approach doesn’t work,” said Mr. Hagedorn, who grew up on a grain and livestock farm. “Farmers, a lot of individual people, are getting crushed. The Democrat candidates are talking universal health care, Medicare for all, single payer, socialized medicine. That’s not going to fly in this district.”
His Democratic opponent Dan Feehan said, “It’s clear that the ACA needs some improvement…and that starts with solutions like lowering the cost of prescription drugs, addressing our health-care workforce shortages, and making health care more affordable for everyone. The top concern I hear over and over is the cost of health care.”
Larry Jacobs, a political scientist at the University of Minnesota, said the two sides will race to frame this year’s expected premium-hike announcements as the other side’s fault. “There will be a lot of cross-pressures messages in Minnesota,” Mr. Jacobs said. “Premiums across the country will spike around November.”
Nationally, voters rank health care as the top issue heading into the midterms, according to a HuffPost/YouGov poll in April. The new challenge for Republicans is that roughly 60% of Americans say President
Donald Trump
and Congress are responsible for the ACA’s performance at this point, a Kaiser Family Foundation poll found.
In last March’s special House race in Pennsylvania, where Democrat
Conor Lamb
bested GOP opponent
Rick Saccone
deep in Trump country, voters cited health care as a major factor, according to Public Policy Polling, a Democratic firm. And in Virginia, when Democrat Ralph Northam defeated Republican
Ed Gillespie
for governor last November, voters said health care was the most important issue, according to an NBC News exit poll.
Democrats hope to similarly ride the issue in Minnesota. House Majority PAC, focused on regaining Democratic control of the House, has reserved about $3.5 million in airtime in Minneapolis this fall, and Planned Parenthood Federation of America also plans to spend money in the state.
On the GOP side, the Republican Governors Association has reserved $2.3 million in advertising for the governor’s race, where former GOP Gov. Tim Pawlenty and Democratic Rep. Tim Walz are among the top candidates.
In an effort to energize the Democratic base while also attracting centrists, some Democratic candidates have taken to advocating a “public option” for health care. More limited than a single-payer system, this option would create a government-run insurance plan to be offered alongside private coverage, possibly by letting more people into Medicare or Medicaid.
Democratic Sens. Michael Bennet of Colorado and
Chris Murphy
of Connecticut have introduced separate bills to create a public option. In the Seattle suburbs, Kim Schrier, a pediatrician, is touting her support for expanding Medicare to everyone as the basis of her campaign for Congress.
Such proposals fall short of the sweeping plan by
Sen. Bernie Sanders
(I., Vt.) for a national health system, an idea supported by many in the left wing of the Democratic Party. But Democrats hope they are enough to capture a political mood they are betting has shifted significantly in the past two years.
Write to Stephanie Armour at stephanie.armour@wsj.com and Reid J. Epstein at reid.epstein@wsj.com
Article source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/democrats-campaign-on-health-care-expansion-in-wake-of-gops-failed-aca-repeal-1526040001