On Tuesday, three women derailed the Senate plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
They held that power because the women are Republicans who bucked their party’s leadership.
All three, Shelley Capito of West Virginia, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Susan Collins of Maine, said the measure’s proposed cuts to Medicaid was the tipping point for coming out against the repeal-only plan.
“I did not come to Washington to hurt people,” Capito said, noting that since West Virginia voted in 2014 to expand Medicaid an additional 200,000 now receive health insurance. Medicaid also helps fund the treatment of those addicted to opioids, fast becoming an epidemic in West Virginia.
When Alaska expanded Medicaid an additional 53 percent of its residents received insurance. In Kansas, which did not expand the federal program despite a 100 percent reimbursement, an additional 3 percent of residents qualify for coverage.
Repealing the ACA without a plan to replace it will serve only to further destabilize the individual health insurance markets, Murkowski said, noting Alaskans have only one choice of health insurance now.
For Sen. Collins, the elderly are on her mind. Maine has the oldest population of the nation — median age 43, compared to Kansas’ 36. The most recent Senate plan would allow insurance companies to increase rates on the elderly by up to five times — against the ACA’s current limit of three times of that charged to young adults.
Repeal-only also concerns Collins. “I do not think that it’s constructive to repeal a law that is so interwoven within our health care system without having a replacement plan in place,” she said. “We can’t just hope that we will pass a replacement within the next two years,” as has been proposed.
BECAUSE POLITICS today so strongly hew to a party line, it’s political suicide to do otherwise. Next week Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is calling for a vote on the repeal-only measure simply for the purpose of getting on record its detractors and warning there will be a price to pay in so doing.
These three women have committed political heresy by suggesting not only working with Democrats on the healthcare bill, but also in a public fashion, as opposed to the initial bill which was drafted by 13 Republican men behind closed doors. And Sen. McConnell was shocked that the measure met with disapproval.
Are you sensing some outrage here?
There’s a new movement afoot called She Should Run whose goal is to get more women in public office. It’s gaining momentum in part because of the strong reaction to today’s partisan politics and the lack of effective leadership.
According to its website, sheshouldrun.org, the movement is designed to recruit and help train women on how to run for public office with a goal of having as many women as men in elective office by 2030. Today, women account for about 25 percent of elective offices, from school boards to Congress.
I hope the leadership these three female senators have demonstrated will encourage other women to seek public office. Our country’s future depends on it.
