Democrats hope Obamacare can save Sen. Joe Manchin in West Virginia. They just don’t want to talk about the healthcare law by name. They are focusing on protections for pre-existing conditions instead and hoping that the electorate won’t notice.
Consider this recent ad from Senate Majority PAC, an outfit aligned with Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. The message is simple: Manchin wants to save the sick while his Republican challenger, state attorney general Patrick Morrisey, basically wants to feed them to insurance companies.
Notice, however, how the spot doesn’t even mention the word “Obamacare” once.
Manchin made an identical argument, albeit with more of a bang. He went and got his gun. Again.
“That’s me shooting the cap and trade bill, because it was bad for West Virginia,” Manchin says replaying the 2012 campaign ad highlighting his rebellion against Barack Obama’s global warming legislation. “Now, the threat is Patrick Morrisey’s lawsuit to take away healthcare from people with pre-existing conditions,” Manchin continues. “He is just dead wrong, and that ain’t gonna happen.”
Just like the Schumer PAC, Manchin doesn’t mention Obamacare either. He merely echoes the language about pre-existing conditions.
[Also read: Administration seeks to make it easier to avoid Obamacare mandate penalty]
This omission is clever because it lets Democrats and Manchin focus on the positive parts of that healthcare law while avoiding responsibility for the disastrous parts.
It’s true the lawsuit in question would end protections for pre-existing conditions. It is also accurate that Morrisey signed onto the suit in February with 18 other state attorney generals. But he didn’t do it so that insurance companies could switch off grandmother’s ventilator and wheel her out to the curb. Morrisey merely joined a lawsuit against Obamacare — you know, the same legislation Republicans have been railing against for the better part of the last decade.
Morrisey hasn’t hidden his thoughts on Obamacare. He has been in court arguing about them for some time as attorney general. And Morrisey hasn’t shied away from discussing the preexisting conditions issue. Like other Republicans — Sen. Susan Collins of Maine for instance — Morrisey has said he wants to repeal Obamacare while preserving the protections.
This isn’t the first time Manchin has made this attack. He tweeted this back in June:
NEWS: Manchin launches online petition to protect West Virginians with pre-existing conditions. #wvsen #wvpol https://t.co/I36fWlPdTC
— Joe Manchin (@JoeManchinWV) June 22, 2018
This isn’t the first time that Morrisey has responded either. Back then, a spokesman for the campaign reiterated that Morrisey believes Obamacare should be repealed and that “help should be provided to those who need it most, including those with pre-existing conditions.” He wants to repeal the law. Then, he wants to replace it with something else.
Is that vision of repeal and replace feasible anymore? Maybe not, after Republicans tripped all over themselves in the Senate. But at least it is honest, and at least Morrisey isn’t afraid to say the word Obamacare. Manchin has been dancing around the issue since coming to the Senate. One day he favors “repealing the things that are bad in that bill.” The other, he votes to keep Obamacare the law of the land.
