Overnight Health Care: Manchin fires gun at anti-ObamaCare lawsuit in new ad | More Dems come out against Kavanaugh | Michigan seeks Medicaid work requirements
Happy Monday, and welcome to Overnight Health Care. Congress is out of town for Rosh Hashanah. There’s not let up in campaign news though ahead of the closely approaching midterms.
Manchin shoots anti-ObamaCare lawsuit with a gun in new ad
How times have changed in ObamaCare politics. In 2010, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) was shooting the cap and trade bill with a gun and promising to “repeal the bad parts of ObamaCare.”
Now, he’s touting ObamaCare, and shooting a GOP lawsuit against the health law with a gun in a new ad.
{mosads}”That’s me shooting the cap and trade bill, because it was bad for West Virginia,” Manchin says in the ad, showing the opening from the 2010 spot, where he rebelled against an environmental priority of Democratic leaders.
“Now the threat is Patrick Morrisey’s lawsuit to take away health care from people with pre-existing conditions,” Manchin continues. “He is just dead wrong, and that ain’t gonna happen.”
Bigger picture: Manchin has made preserving ObamaCare’s pre-existing condition protections a key part of his campaign, as have other red state Democrats in tough races this year.
Response from his Republican opponent, West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey: “Joe Manchin has a ‘D’ rating from the NRA, and voted against President Trump’s efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare,” Morrisey spokesman Nathan Brand said in response to the ad. “Lying liberal Joe has been wrong for West Virginia.”
The New York Times took a deeper look at how Manchin is running on health care over the weekend. Read that piece here.
In another sign of Dems running on healthcare, look to Arizona
The Arizona Democratic Party is launching a new ad against Rep. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.), the GOP candidate for Senate there, saying she backtracked on a pledge to protect people with pre-existing conditions by voting for the House’s repeal and replace bill last year.
“Martha McSally doesn’t care about your health care. Doesn’t care about you,” the ad states.
The Hill event
Join us Wednesday, September 12 for “A Healthy Start: Infant and Early Childhood Nutrition,” featuring Reps. Nanette Barragán (D-Calif.) and Bobby Scott (D-Va.), and Administrator of the Food and Nutrition Service Brandon Lipps. Editor in Chief Bob Cusack will sit down with the headliners to discuss maternal, infant, and early childhood nutrition, and what steps can be taken to establish healthier eating patterns across all communities. RSVP Here.
Michigan wants Medicaid work requirements
Michigan is asking the Trump administration to approve work requirements for thousands of low-income adults who gained health care under ObamaCare’s Medicaid expansion.
Under the proposal, beneficiaries between the ages of 19 to 62 will have to work, volunteer or attend job training for at least 80 hours a month to keep their benefits.
There are 12 exemptions, including for those who are caretakers of family members younger than six and those who are pregnant.
Context: Medicaid work requirements are a huge priority for the Trump administration, and it has already approved four requests. (One was invalidated by a federal court and the other is being litigated.) Several other states have requests pending.
Latest on Kavanaugh…
Several Democratic senators are coming off the fence to announce they will oppose President Trump’s second Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh.
Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.), Maggie Hassan (N.H.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.) became the latest Democrats to say they will vote against Kavanaugh. Both senators announced their opposition on Monday.
“While much of Judge Kavanaugh’s record remains a mystery, what we do know is extremely troubling and dangerously out of step with the American people, particularly on critical issues including executive power, abortion rights and pre-existing conditions,” Shaheen said in a statement.
Federal appeals court rules in favor of Missouri abortion restrictions
A federal appeals court on Monday ruled that the state of Missouri could enforce laws that abortion rights groups argue will curb access to the procedure.
The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a 2017 ruling that blocked enforcement of the laws, which require doctors who perform abortions to be affiliated with hospitals and abortion clinics to be licensed as ambulatory surgical centers.
Planned Parenthood initially sued the state over the laws in 2016.
They argue the requirements are burdensome and unnecessary, and will result in abortion clinics closing in Missouri.
“Look no farther than Missouri to see what kind of harm courts can inflict on women’s rights and freedoms,” said Dawn Laguens, executive vice president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
“Despite a Supreme Court ruling striking down virtually identical restrictions in Texas, judges in the Eighth Circuit continue to re-write the books on abortion access. Today’s ruling threatens to eliminate abortion access at all but one health center in the state.”
What we’re reading
Medicaid work requirements will cause ‘more harm than good’: Researchers (ABC News)
Medicaid expansion looms large in governor’s races (Axios)
Fewer drug price hikes in August show Trump’s attacks could be working, Wells Fargo says (Washington Examiner)
State by state
Medicaid expansion finds grass-roots support in conservative Utah (The New York Times)
Abortion opposition once defined Marsha Blackburn. But not in her Senate race. (The New York Times)
The Hill op-eds
Healthy food has gone high end, but is the lifestyle trend worth the cost?
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