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Rosen attacks Heller over Senate health care stance in new video

Megan Messerly
Megan Messerly
Election 2018Health Care
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Amid ongoing discussions in the Senate over the future of the nation’s health care system, Rep. Jacky Rosen released a new video Wednesday attacking Republican Sen. Dean Heller over his decision to vote to proceed with debate on legislation to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.

Rosen, a first-term Democratic congresswoman challenging the Republican senator in 2018, highlights in the video Heller’s wavering positions on health care, from announcing weeks ago that he wouldn’t vote to proceed with debate on Senate Republicans’ repeal-and-replace bill to voting yesterday to do exactly that. Heller voted for legislation to repeal the Affordable Care Act in 2015 but came out staunchly against the first version of the Senate’s repeal-and-replace bill due to its significant cuts to the government-funded Medicaid program.

Heller, a critical vote on the so-called motion to proceed, said that he would support moving the legislation forward to address the “unworkable aspects” of the Affordable Care Act but reserved his right to vote against the final version of the bill.

“Whether it’s my ideas to protect Nevadans who depend on Medicaid or the Graham-Cassidy proposal that empowers states and repeals the individual and employer mandates, there are commonsense solutions that could improve our health care system and today’s vote gives us the opportunity to fight for them,” he said in a statement. “If the final product isn’t improved for the state of Nevada, then I will not vote for it; if it is improved, I will support it.”

Rosen’s video frames Heller’s decision to support the procedural motion as capitulation following a meeting in which President Donald Trump cajoled Heller over his opposition to the Senate Republicans’ repeal-and-replace bill, called the Better Health Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA). Trump said at the meeting that Heller “was the one we were worried about,’” that he wasn’t “there” on the Senate Republicans’ plan but that he was “gonna be.”

“Senator Heller got in line,” Rosen said in the video. “He put partisan politics before Nevada families.”

The procedural motion allowed the Senate to begin debate and vote on a number of different health care proposals, from the BCRA to a full repeal without replacement plan favored by Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul. But it is still unclear what version of a bill Heller would vote to support, since he rejected moving the BCRA forward with two amendments in a vote Tuesday night.

“Under the bill Senator Heller voted to advance, hundreds of thousands of Nevadans stand to lose their health insurance,” Rosen said. “Health care costs would rise across Nevada. There would be no more guaranteed coverage for pre-existing conditions. It would even create an age tax that lets the insurance industry charge older Americans thousands of dollars more each year.”

Heller said at a press conference in June that he would not support legislation that takes insurance away from tens of millions of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Nevadans.

Watch the video here:

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