By Julie Rovner NOVEMBER
7, 2018
[UPDATED at 1:50 p.m. ET]
Health
care proved important but apparently not pivotal in the 2018 midterm elections
on Tuesday as voters gave Democrats control of the U.S. House, left Republicans
in charge in the Senate and appeared to order an expansion of Medicaid in at
least three states long controlled by Republicans.
In
taking over the House, Democrats are unlikely to be able to advance many
initiatives when it comes to health policy, given the GOP’s control of the
Senate and White House. But they will be able to deliver an effective veto to
Republican efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, convert the Medicaid
health care system for low-income people into a block grant program and make
major changes to Medicare.
One
likely development is an expansion of Medicaid in several of the 18 states that
had so far not offered coverage made available by the Affordable Care Act.
Voters in Idaho and Nebraska easily approved ballot measures calling for
expansion. A similar measure was leading in Utah based on incomplete returns.
In
Montana, voters are deciding if the existing expansion should be continued and
the state’s expenses covered by raising tobacco taxes. In preliminary results,
opponents outnumbered supporters, but key counties were not expected to release their
tallies until Wednesday.
Medicaid
might also be expanded in Kansas, where Democratic gubernatorial candidate
Laura Kelly defeated GOP Secretary of State Kris Kobach. The Kansas legislature
had previously passed Medicaid expansion, but it was vetoed in
2017 by former GOP Gov. Sam Brownback. Kobach had not supportedthe ACA
expansion.
And in
Maine, where voters approved Medicaid expansion in 2017 but GOP Gov. Paul
LePage refused to implement it, Democrat Janet Mills was victorious. She
has promised to follow the voters’ wishes. LePage
was not running.
The
abortion issue was also on the ballot in several states. In Alabama and West
Virginia, voters approved state constitutional amendments that would make it
easier for the states to ban abortion entirely if the Supreme Court were to
overturn Roe v Wade. Oregon voters, on the other hand,
defeated a measure that would have restricted public funding of abortion and
insurance coverage for abortion.
The
mixed results allowed both sides of the polarized abortion debate to claim
victory.
“This
election is a major victory … for everyone in this country who cares about
access to health care and access to reproductive health care,” Deirdre
Schifeling, executive director of Planned Parenthood Votes, told reporters in a
conference call.
Said
Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the anti-abortion Susan B. Anthony List:
“Yesterday was a clear victory for the pro-life movement. The Senate once again
has a pro-life majority — a ringing affirmation of President Trump’s pro-life
agenda from the American people, who have seen him deliver on a key promise by
appointing two outstanding Supreme Court justices.”
In exit
polling, as in many earlier surveys in 2018, voters said that health care,
particularly preserving protections for people with preexisting conditions, was
their top issue. But health care remained more important to
Democrats than to Republicans.
Those
who urged Democrats to emphasize health care this year took credit for the
congressional successes. “The race for the House was a referendum on the
Republican war on health care. You know it, I know it, and the Republican
incumbents who shamefully tried to cover up their real record on health care
and lost their seats know it,” said Brad Woodhouse of the advocacy group
Protect Our Care.
But the
issue was not enough to save some of the Senate Democrats in states won by
President Donald Trump in 2016. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) was defeated by
GOP Attorney General Josh Hawley, who is a plaintiff in a key lawsuit seeking
to declare the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional. Sens. Heidi Heitkamp
(D-N.D.) and Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.), who also campaigned hard on health care,
were defeated.
Nonetheless,
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) beat Republican Patrick Morrisey, the state’s
attorney general who is also a plaintiff in the lawsuit seeking to upend the
ACA.
Rep.
Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the leader of the House Democrats who would be first
in line to take over as speaker, told supporters gathered
in Washington for a victory celebration that her caucus would make health care
a key legislative issue.
“It’s
about stopping the GOP and [Senate Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell’s assault
on Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act and the health care of 130
million Americans living with preexisting medical conditions,” she said. She
pledged that Democrats would take “very, very strong legislative action” to
lower the cost of prescription drugs.
In a
wide-ranging news conference on Wednesday, Trump struck something of a
conciliatory tone toward the new Democratic majority in the House.
“I
believe Nancy Pelosi and I can work together to get a lot of things done,”
Trump said. “I suspect [House Democrats] will come up with some fantastic ideas
that I can support … including prescription drug prices.”
Among
the many new faces in the House is at least one with some significant
experience in health policy. Former Health and Human Services Secretary Donna
Shalala, who ran the department for all eight years of the Clinton
administration, won an open seat in Florida.
Several
members of the House and Senate were reelected despite serious ethical and
legal troubles. Among them was Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.), who was charged in August with
violating insider trading laws while promoting Innate Immunotherapeutics, a
small Australian biotech company.
[Update: This story was updated on Nov. 7 at 1:50 p.m. ET to
reflect the latest election results.]
Julie
Rovner: jrovner@kff.org,
@jrovner
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