Senator feels heat over health care
WASHINGTON — Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., is the man everyone wants. This has not been a good thing for him.
Brian Sandoval, the governor of Heller’s home state, is a Republican, but he is counting on Heller to provide what could be a crucial vote to maintain President Barack Obama’s health care law, which has been a boon for the working poor in Nevada. Sen. Mitch McConnell, the majority leader who this week will be rounding up votes to fulfill his party’s biggest promise of the past decade — repealing the Affordable Care Act — is trying to prevent Heller from undermining that goal.
Democrats also want Heller, but in the form of an unemployed senator. As the only Republican who is up for re-election next year in a state that Hillary Clinton won, he may be their only shot at picking up a seat. Democrats and health care interest groups have been unloading on Heller all spring with no end in sight.
Far-right Republicans in his state — who strongly support President Trump — also have their eyes on Heller to see if he will abandon the president.
On Saturday, Trump posted on Twitter, venting about Heller and other Republicans who are not supporting the Senate bill.
“I cannot imagine that these very fine Republican Senators would allow the American people to suffer a broken ObamaCare any longer!” Trump tweeted.
On Friday, Sandoval acknowledged the obvious. “He’s in the eye of the storm here,” Sandoval said at a news conference in Nevada as Heller stood next to him, looking vaguely miserable as Sandoval announced his opposition to the Senate bill. The legislation could affect 210,000 Nevada residents insured through the health care law’s expansion of Medicaid.
Heller said that he, too, was against the bill as it is drafted, leaving himself just enough wiggle room to continue his practice of being the senator in the middle, the man who wants to see the Medicaid program phased out, except when he decides he doesn’t. (Heller has taken both positions publicly.)
Heller said at the news conference that “this bill that’s currently in front of the United States Senate is not the answer — it’s simply not the answer.” He said, “It’s going to be very difficult to get me to a yes.”
As early as Thursday, the Senate will take a momentous vote to repeal the health law, and for Republicans from states that expanded their Medicaid program, the options are anything but palatable.
If the effort fails, the party risks being tarred as feckless: in control of the House, the Senate and the White House, but unable to come through with a promise Republicans have been making from the day Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law in 2010.
If the effort succeeds, expansion-state Republicans face the prospects of political hellfire: blame for every potential glitch in the health care system, from premium increases to canceled health plans and benefit losses.
Heller, 57, represents the sort of state, both rural and working class, that has much to lose from the repeal of the Affordable Care Act. Nevada was once a national leader in the number of uninsured, but now the program has insured tens of thousands of its residents.