Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-S.D., is highlighting Republican attacks on Obamacare in her latest campaign ad to win re-election, but the video never mentions the Affordable Care Act by name.
Heitkamp’s campaign ad out Thursday centers on the healthcare law’s protections for people with pre-existing illnesses, such as cancer or diabetes, that the House voted to roll back in its healthcare bill last year and that the Trump administration is seeking to sever in court. Heitkamp faces a difficult re-election battle in North Dakota against the pro-Trump Republican Rep. Kevin Cramer.
The ad portrays a woman with a history of heart disease asking Cramer why he voted to roll back protections for people with pre-existing conditions, and in it Heitkamp highlights that she herself has a history of breast cancer.
[Trump: Obamacare to be gone ‘pretty soon’]
“Like 300,000 North Dakotans, Denise has a pre-existing condition,” Heitkamp says of the woman featured in the ad. “That used to mean no health insurance.”
The ad does not specifically mention Obamacare, which obligated health insurers cover people with pre-existing medical conditions without charging them more.
In response, the Republican Party of North Dakota issued a statement accusing Heitkamp of lying.
“Heidi Heitkamp’s repeated lies about Cramer’s stance on pre-existing conditions won’t work,” said North Dakota Republican Party spokesman Jake Wilkins. “Heitkamp’s support for Obamacare has saddled North Dakotans with higher costs, worse care, and fewer options; and voters will remember that in November.”
The latest ad represents a larger shift in the Democratic Party. For years, Republicans vowed to repeal the law as Democrats tried to defend it and tamp down criticism amid a troubled website launch and public outcry over losing plans and doctors. Now, Democrats are bragging about the law’s provisions and argue that Republicans are intent on “sabotaging” Obamacare, including the more popular parts of the law.
The Trump administration is arguing that the pre-existing rules need to go because they cannot be severed from the individual mandate that requires most people obtain healthcare coverage. The mandate will zero out beginning in 2019 because of the GOP tax law.
Heitkamp, in particular, is running in a state that President Trump won by 36 points, and is one of three Democrats facing a dilemma over whether to approve Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court, Judge Brett Kavanaugh. Most Democrats have said that they would vote against Kavanaugh and have warned that he would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that made abortion legal nationwide.
But other Democrats are instead focusing on the Obamacare case, which also could reach the Supreme Court, particularly in states where public views on abortion are less favorable. North Dakota has a “trigger law” that would ban abortion if Roe is overturned, and the state has only one abortion clinic.
Heitkamp opposes the position of other Democrats who want the U.S. to adopt a single-payer healthcare system in which everyone would be enrolled in Medicare. Instead, she is running deliberately on preserving Obamacare, she told the Washington Examiner in a recent interview.
