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New digital ads from EMILY's List target Heller over health care, Planned Parenthood

Megan Messerly
Megan Messerly
Election 2018Health Care
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The national group EMILY’s List, which works to elect pro-abortion-rights female Democrats, is up today with three digital ads targeting Republican Sen. Dean Heller over his wavering positions on health care and Planned Parenthood.

One of the ads highlights Heller’s decision to vote at the end of July to open the debate on the Senate’s bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, couching him as the “deciding vote to advance Trumpcare.” Heller, considered the most vulnerable Republican senator up for re-election in 2018, said at the end of June that he would oppose the so-called motion to proceed to debate on the legislation before voting to do so about a month later. (The measure passed 51-50, with Vice President Mike Pence casting the tie-breaking vote.)

(Courtesy/EMILY's List)

The ad argues that by doing so Heller — which it refers to as “Deciding Vote Dean” — “endangered the health care of 328,000 Nevadans.” A report by the Children’s Advocacy Alliance and Nevadans Together for Medicaid estimated that 328,000 Nevadans would lose health care under the Senate Republican’s health care bill.

Though Heller voted to move to debate on the legislation — to “give us a chance to address the unworkable aspects” of the Affordable Care Act, he said minutes before the vote — he ultimately voted against the so-called Better Care Reconciliation Act as well as a proposal that would have just repealed the Affordable Care Act with no replacement plan. He did, however, vote in favor of “skinny repeal,” which would have eliminated the penalties behind the individual and employer mandates and extended a moratorium on a tax on medical devices.

Many Republicans backed the measure, which ultimately failed, as an attempt to get the legislation to a conference committee with the House, where lawmakers were expected to hash out a final plan. Heller, however, seemed supportive of the skinny repeal concept as a whole when he finally put out a statement explaining his vote on the measure.

(Courtesy/EMILY's List)

“Obamacare isn’t the answer, but doing nothing to try to solve the problems it has created isn’t the answer either,” Heller said in a statement to the Las Vegas Sun. “While not perfect, the Health Care Freedom Act protected coverage for our most vulnerable and provided relief to many hard-working Nevadans by repealing the most onerous provision of Obamacare, the individual mandate.”

Another ad states that “Heller voted to undermine access to birth control for four million people,” referring to his March vote in the Senate in favor of a bill that would allow states to block more than $200 million in Title X funding from going to Planned Parenthood. Roughly 4 million Americans rely on family planning services paid for by Title X.

(Courtesy/EMILY's List)

After that vote, Heller said at a town hall in Reno in April that he had “no problems with federal funding for Planned Parenthood,” adding that he would “protect Planned Parenthood.” The third and final ad highlights that encounter, saying “Heller lied to a room of 600+ voters and pretended to support Planned Parenthood.”

"Nevadans deserve to know the truth about Dean Heller," said EMILY's List executive director Emily Cain. "EMILY's List wants to educate his constituents about his history of voting to undermine birth control access, end Planned Parenthood funding, and rip health care away from millions of Americans."

EMILY’s List was one of the first groups to endorse Democratic Rep. Jacky Rosen in her bid to challenge Heller for his Senate seat. The ads will run on Facebook and Instagram as part of an initial four-digit buy.

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