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In new ad, liberal super PAC attacks Heller over health-care proposal he's sponsoring

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A liberal super PAC is urging Republican Sen. Dean Heller and five other Republican senators to reject the Senate's latest bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, despite the fact that Heller is one of the bill's four sponsors.

The ad, paid for by American Bridge 21st Century and which will run as part of a digital ad campaign, highlights an analysis from the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities that estimates that the legislation will result in Nevada losing $2.7 billion by 2026. The legislation, named for Heller and fellow senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, would turn existing federal dollars spent on the Affordable Care Act into a block grant divided between the states, but the block grant would end in 2027 without reauthorization from Congress, which would result in the steep cuts to the state.

The ad also notes that the proposal could result in 32 million Americans losing health insurance entirely — an estimate based on the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office's analysis of the impact of the Senate passing a repeal-without-replace bill, what Graham-Cassidy would essentially become in 2027 — and that it would allow states to request waivers from the federal government that would allow insurers to charge higher premiums to people with certain pre-existing conditions.

"Tell Senator Heller, reject this attack on our health care," the ad says.

An analysis from the bill's sponsors projects that Nevada would receive about $1.96 billion from the block grant in 2026, about 34.5 percent more dollars than it would receive when the block grant goes into effect in 2020. Still, opponents of the legislation highlight that the bill sponsors' calculations make comparisons to 2016 and 2020, not to what Nevada would receive in 2026 if the Affordable Care Act remains in place.



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