GOP foes of health care bill win praise in districts
BUCKNER, Ky. — One of the House Republican rebels, Kentucky Rep. Tom Massie, wasn’t just “no” on the GOP health care bill to replace Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act. Massie was “hell no.”
That won over Mary Broecker, president of the Oldham County Republican Women’s Club and a strong proponent of a full-blown repeal of the 2010 law.
“When he came out against this bill, I thought, ‘I trust him so this must be the right way,’ ” the 76-year-old retired teacher said of Massie last week as she sat at a coffee shop near her LaGrange home.
Defying President Donald Trump on the sevenyear Republican Party promise to repeal and replace “Obamacare” sounds like political suicide, especially in the congressional districts Trump won handily.
Yet, in Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee and Iowa in the bitter aftermath of the GOP’s failure, Republicans who blocked the legislation have won praise from constituents for stopping what many saw as a flawed plan, either in the legislation’s substance or strategy.
Trump initially faulted Democrats for rejecting the bill, but on several occasions since then, he lashed out at the hard-line conservatives of the House Freedom Caucus.
“The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they don’t get on the team, & fast. We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018!” Trump tweeted.
Conservatives opposed the bill because it didn’t go far enough in getting the government out of health care while moderates worried that tens of millions of Americans might be left without insurance.
Trump’s famed dealmaking and powers of persuasion faltered with his own party, a remarkable turn at a time when the GOP controls the White House, Senate and House.
Massie, who is not a member of the Freedom Caucus, answered Trump’s tweet with one of his own.
“It’s a swamp not a hot tub. We both came here to drain it. #SwampCare polls 17%. Sad!”
Nationwide, an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll released last week found that 62 percent disapprove of Trump’s handling of health care, his worst rating among seven issues the poll tested.
The same poll found negative views of five of the six changes Republicans envisioned for the bill, including allowing insurers to charge older customers higher premiums than is now allowed, reduced funds for Medicaid and denying federal dollars to Planned Parenthood.
But the same voters who backed their local lawmaker for opposing the bill showed patience with Trump.
“I think he’s going to be a great president,” Broecker said. “I think he’ll figure it out.”
In the districts of the bill’s foes, Republican voters and activists faulted Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. Some argue he was too willing to accept pieces of “Obamacare.”
“We’ve been hearing repeal-and-replace for seven years and finally we get control, and they say, let’s just kind of fix it,” said 31-year-old Justin Wasson of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, who runs a small business.
“We gave them everything. Now, I want this thing gutted.”
Shea Cox, a 21-year-old computer science major from Shelbyville, Tenn., said the bill failed because Ryan rushed what Cox called a “complete hack job” that “looked almost exactly like “Obamacare” with a couple of things taken out.” That’s why he was happy to see Tennessee Rep. Scott DesJarlais oppose it.
With midterm elections coming next year, Wasson said he planned to vote again for his congressman, Rep. Rod Blum of Dubuque — a sentiment echoed by other voters whose representatives opposed the bill.