Obamacare advocacy groups are starting a new campaign aimed at pressuring Republicans over their attempts to repeal Obamacare.
The groups Save My Care and Protect Our Care announced the “Enough is Enough” campaign Tuesday. It starts with a six-figure TV and digital ad buy in seven states: Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Maine, Nevada, Ohio and Tennessee. Advocates say polling shows healthcare continuing to be a top priority.
“Our job is to stop repeal and stop sabotage and hold people who are for repeal and sabotage accountable and let the politics work itself out,” said Bradley Woodhouse, campaign director for Protect Our Care. “Everything we have seen indicated this is an extremely potent issue going to midterms.”
Leslie Dach, campaign chairman of Save My Care, added that “healthcare activists will hold ‘Enough is Enough’ events across these states.”
Senate races will be competitive in Colorado, Nevada, and Arizona in the fall, but not in Alaska and Maine. However, GOP senators from those two states voted against a “skinny” repeal bill last summer. Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine joined Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona and all Senate Democrats to defeat the bill in late July.
The campaign is being started the same day the Trump administration announced a proposed rule aimed at extending the duration of short-term health plans to roughly 12 months.
Obamacare advocates decried the move that they say will lead to the proliferation of “junk” insurance plans that don’t have to follow requirements for Obamacare plans such as protections for people with pre-existing conditions.
“What we saw today is another in a series of efforts by the Trump administration to sabotage the law,” said Sam Berger, senior adviser for the left-leaning think tank Center for American Progress.
Administration officials and critics of Obamacare said the plans offer a cheaper alternative for healthy people who earn too much to receive tax subsidies to pay for an Obamacare plan.
Berger said the administration instead should be focused on lowering premiums for Obamacare plans, saying it is part of a pattern of sabotage that includes Trump’s decision to halt Obamacare insurer payments in the fall.
“We shouldn’t be in the business of providing people with worse care,” he said. “[We] should look at reducing the cost of high-quality care.”
The campaign comes as Democrats are fretting over rising approval numbers for the GOP’s tax reform law. Major Democratic super PAC Priorities USA released a memo calling for Democrats to message more consistently against tax reform.
Meanwhile, public polls generally gave poor marks to the GOP’s Obamacare repeal efforts last year.
