How the Health Bill Could Cost Senators in the Next Election
By VIKAS BAJAJ and STUART A. THOMPSON at the N.Y. Times
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/07/24/opinion/100000005298490.mobile.html
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One of the health care bills under consideration by Republican leaders would take health insurance away from 32 million people over the next decade, creating a cohort of Americans who could be motivated to vote against senators who approved the measure.
The Senate could vote as early as Tuesday, but it is not yet clear which of the two bills in contention that the majority leader, Mitch McConnell, intends to bring up. The plan that would leave 32 million without coverage would repeal some of the most important parts of the Affordable Care Act without any replacement.
If they pass the bill, some Republicans might put themselves in a difficult situation because many of them won their last election by fewer votes than the number of people who would lose health coverage in their state under the proposed legislation. The comparison shows the scale of the problem some Republicans might face in close races.
(See chart)
Republican senators up for re-election in 2018 - 2020 and their Margin of victory in last election - minus Newly uninsured by 2019
Note: Excludes senators where the margin of victory is
greater than the number of uninsured.00
Of course, not everyone who faces a tougher insurance market will be swayed to vote against incumbent Republican senators who backed the bill, if only because voters won’t see the effects immediately. Under the repeal without replacement bill, Obamacare’s expanded Medicaid coverage would end in 2020, after the 2018 midterm election. Under the other Senate bill under consideration, the Better Care Reconciliation Act, big cuts to Medicaid would start in 2021, the year after the next presidential election.
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