Democrats see health care as a winning issue
Congressional candidates are advertising their concerns about pre-existing conditions
WASHINGTON — In one of the new Democratic-sponsored health care ads airing in Houston for congressional candidate Lizzie Pannill Fletcher, a woman examining a pill bottle asks: “Hey Audrey, why in the heck are these prescriptions so expensive?”
In an ad in San Antonio with black-and-white photos of unnamed Texans, Democrat Gina Ortiz Jones blames second-term U.S. Rep. Will Hurd, the Republican she hopes to unseat, for a precarious grip on health care felt by many Texans.
“These are the faces of the more than 300,000 people in this part of Texas who could lose their health care coverage because they have a pre-existing condition or will no longer be able to afford the premiums,” Jones says in the ad.
Ads don’t always tell the whole story: Hurd was one of 20 Republicans who defected from his party at a pivotal moment last year — the repeal of the Affordable Care Act by a narrow margin in the GOP-run House.
With or without details, Democrats across the country are unleashing a fusillade of commercials and campaign tactics tied to
health care, the issue many see as the ticket to regaining control of the House in November.
The ads are a big investment: The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s spots in the Houston area are the first of a $2 million, six-week broadcast and cable buy backing Fletcher’s drive to unseat nine-term GOP incumbent John Culberson.
Candidates are using that pulpit both to bludgeon Republicans for unfinished business on health insurance and to accentuate personal appeals.
Mary “MJ” Hegar, of Round Rock, who is trying to unseat eight-term GOP Rep. John Carter, released a health care ad last week highlighting her injuries in Afghanistan, and the tattoos that cover them.
“When I took a round through my helicopter windshield, the bullet fragmented across my arms and leg. I immediately learned how important quality medical care is and it’s why I’ll fight politicians and insurance companies to lower the cost of health care,” Hegar says in the ad, filmed partly in a tattoo parlor.
Issue resonates in Texas
Even before all the new ads, 44 percent of 3,998 ads aired in Texas in August in congressional campaigns mentioned health care, according to a study by the Wesleyan Media project based on ad tracking. Nationally, 37 percent of the ads had a health care link.
Democrats’ reliance on health care issues is a stark reversal from recent elections, in which “repeal Obamacare” became the Republicans’ clarion call in campaigns for Congress. The political offensive reflects polls that show voters’ deepening concerns about health insurance costs and what they pay for prescriptions.
Those concerns hold special significance in Texas: Federal court proceedings in Fort Worth initiated by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and 19 other GOP attorneys general could lead to all or part of the nation’s health insurance law being declared unconstitutional.
The law’s protections for health insurance consumers with pre-existing conditions — which the Trump administration has chosen not to defend in the Fort Worth courtroom — are especially popular.
A Kaiser Family Foundation poll released last week found that 75 percent of Americans consider it “very important” that those protections remain law, with 4 in 10 “very worried” that they or a family member will lose coverage if the protections are overturned in court.
That result mirrored findings in a Texas Medical Center’s national consumer survey released this week showing that more than 6 in 10 say they are likely to only vote for candidates in November who promise health care fixes.
Polls give Democrats an overwhelming advantage when voters are asked which party can best deal with health care issues. An NBC-Wall Street Journal survey last month put the Democratic advantage at 18 percent, the highest in more than a decade of asking the question.
GOP fights back
Republicans unleashed their own array of ads this week, marking national parties’ first heavy entry into the battle for House control. They were largely silent on health care matters, instead trumpeting the strength of the economy and immigration while skewering Democrats for alleged ethical transgressions and ties to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
Jack Pandol, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, expressed no concern about the effect of the Democrats’ onslaught. He contends Democratic divisions over moving to a single-payer insurance system that showed up in primary elections will gird his party this season.
Pandol raised the specter that a single-payer system — an unlikely outcome in Congress any time soon — would lead to massive tax increases and rationed care.
“What we’ve seen over and over again in polling across the country and in Texas is that when voters see Democratic support for this government-run health care plan, they run away as fast as they can,” he said.
Brad Woodhouse, executive director of the advocacy group Protect Our Care, says the Democratic debate on single-payer — also known as “Medicare for All” — was largely limited to primary races and shouldn’t be an issue in the fall campaign.
“Republicans have lied and demagogued on health care for years. They were the ones who came up with the term death panels, which never existed,” he said. “We are not in charge. It’s not our policies or programs or governance that voters are going to express their views on in November. This is a referendum on Republican office-holders.”
Texas Sen. John Cornyn, a Republican, said of Democratic candidates’ tactics: “Democratic pollsters told them that they need to stoke people’s fears about eliminating coverage for pre-existing conditions and the like.”
Speaking to reporters, he added: “The argument that the only way you can cover pre-existing conditions is to continue with the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare, is simply untrue. There are ways to cover pre-existing conditions and still give people choices when it comes to their health care coverage rather than mandate onesize-fits-all, which is what Obamacare did.”
Looking for middle ground
National Democrats last weekend chose U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Austin, a senior member of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, to deliver the Democratic rebuttal to President Donald Trump’s weekly radio address.
“Apparently, our Republican colleagues are afflicted with their very own special type of pre-existing condition, called amnesia. They have forgotten about all the suffering, for so many, before the Affordable Care Act became the law of the land,” Doggett said in his national address.
In an interview, Doggett said that while traveling his district in recent weeks, people spoke of their fears of losing protection for their pre-existing conditions if Paxton and allies win their suit. People with diabetes are especially troubled, he said.
“It’s the kind of pre-existing condition that will result in being denied entirely, excluded from protection they need most or leading to unaffordable premiums for their coverage,” he said.
Doggett said that even if Democrats win control of the House in November, health care solutions would be uncertain.
“We’ll move from a situation of worst to just bad,” he said, noting the prospect of vetoes to Democratic-drawn bills.
The strategy in a Democraticrun House, he said, would be adding health care provisions to must-sign bills — such as those that fund the military — or crafting bipartisan legislation that might appeal to Trump.
He noted the president has expressed support of allowing Medicare to negotiate the prices of drugs directly with manufacturers, prohibited now by law.
“That may be an issue where we can have a victory, Trump can have a victory and, more importantly, all those people who are being gouged can have a victory,” he said.