Our Montana Senator Steve Daines raised some hopes that he might be one of the Republican holdouts in the Senate on health care when he made public statements that he was concerned about the secret process for writing the Senate health bill (though it is possible that his real concern was excluding Republican Senators like himself from the closed negotiations).
More importantly, a statement from his office to the Bozeman Chronicle on July 9 indicated that, while he had no position on the bill yet, he would look for three things in the bill: “We need to reduce premiums and make health care more affordable for Montana families, take care of those with pre-existing conditions so that they have access to care, and save and protect Medicaid for who it was originally intended for: the most vulnerable in our society.â€
Then, after meeting with President Trump, Sen. Daines announced he would support complete repeal of the Affordable Care Act without replacement. He didn’t state the obvious — rates for tens of millions of Americans would indeed go down because they will lose their insurance altogether. People with pre-existing conditions will once again be unable to get insurance except at exorbitant rates. And Medicaid will eventually disappear if Republicans remain in power.
Perhaps our Senator didn’t have time to think about how that conflicts with his own three-part test, after being wooed by the President. Let me help him out. Here is what he should have said:
“I am proud to be a Republican and I believe in my party’s basic principles. There is no doubt that the Affordable Care Act is flawed. I agreed with our president when he said the House bill was “mean,” and that he wanted a health care act that would cover everyone, reduce premiums and deductibles, protect people with pre-existing conditions, and provide no cuts to Medicare or Medicaid. However, The Senate health care bill did not do that, which is why I would have voted against it.
“When the new proposal came up to repeal Obamacare altogether WITH NO REPLACEMENT, I was flabbergasted. I am a Christian, and most of my Senate colleagues claim they are Christian. No honest person can possibly think that Jesus would support a plan to take away insurance from 18 million people by next year, according to the Congressional Budget Office, and 32 million more by 2026, thereby leaving them to face life-or-bankruptcy decisions if severe illness or accidents occur.
“I have been a loyal Republican, and I want to see us follow our President’s prophetic vision of what health care should be in this country. However, when my president and my party choose a blatantly un-Jesus-like course, I must stand up and resist, otherwise my faith counts for nothing. They will never get my vote until there is a bill to implement the President’s vision to reduce costs and deductibles, increase coverage, protect people with pre-existing conditions, and protect the people — especially the children and the elderly — who rely on Medicaid. As a Christian who takes his faith seriously, I can do no other.”
