States with poor climate policy ‘overlap’ with those seeking to limit rights, Kamala Harris says
In one instance, he said, the state had to “change the name” of its health insurance program for low-income adults after the state’s attorney general sued and won an injunction to protect access.
“We’re the party of personal responsibility, but we’re not the party of legal protections,” he said then. “We may have to change the name of our program. We might have to change the name of our health insurance to, in some sense, reflect that personal responsibility.”
The move follows Democrats’ calls for Republicans to stop voting yes on Trump’s health care legislation, a bid that could result in an electoral defeat in November. The party has been working to highlight the growing influence of health care costs and its financial costs to consumers.
Republicans have been less focused on health care affordability, but they have been more critical of Democratic efforts to repeal Obamacare.
In interviews, many Democrats pointed to Republicans’ attempts to undercut the Affordable Care Act as a potential factor fueling the Democratic challenge.
“It all started because the Republicans put their thumb on Obamacare,” said Rep. Joe Garcia, D-Fla., who will run as a Democrat for U.S. Senate. “They just put their thumb on the scale in its weakest spot.”
Trump has cast the Affordable Care Act as a failure and a potential target of Republican attacks, saying in an interview with The Wall Street Journal in October that the ACA “is collapsing under the weight of its tremendous costs and tremendous taxes — and many Americans just hate it.”
He has also pointed to a Republican effort to repeal the ACA as a campaign issue and attacked Democrats for supporting the bill.
Still, the president’s message has not translated easily into actions by the president and his party. When Democrats took control of the House and now hold both chambers of Congress, they have struggled to show they are willing to use any means necessary to get health care into the bill that Republicans are developing.
“There is no question that the ACA is failing,” said Rep. Michael Capuano, D-Mass., who will run in the Democratic U.S. Senate primary in Massachusetts, but “I don’t think the president is getting the message.”
Capuano and other Democrats have attacked the GOP plan for limiting the ability of states to create new plans, arguing it would drive up
