New Radio Ads Pressure 5 Key GOP Senators To Oppose O’Care Repeal Bill

UNITED STATES - SEPTEMBER 07: Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, is seen in the Capitol's senate subway on September 7, 2017. (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)
UNITED STATES - SEPTEMBER 07: Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, is seen in the Capitol's senate subway on September 7, 2017. (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call) (CQ Roll Call via AP Images)
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A new $200,000 radio ad campaign launched Friday, pressuring five key Republican senators to vote against the last-ditch effort to repeal and replace Obamacare.

The ads are funded by the Community Catalyst Action Fund and are running on radio stations in the home states of Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), John McCain (R-AZ), Rob Portman (R-OH), Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) and Susan Collins (R-ME) as well as in Washington, D.C. for the next week.

The group sponsoring the advertisement calls the Graham-Cassidy legislation the “most destructive repeal plan” that’s been introduced in Congress to date. A Senate vote on the bill could come next week ahead of a Sept. 30 deadline for passing Obamacare repeal via simple majority vote. 

“There’s an old saying: the definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results,” the narrator says at the start of the radio ads, which are similar in each state and in D.C. “Well, that’s what congressional leaders are doing right now — pushing another bad health care bill.”

The ads then remind the five senators — who either opposed or were key swing votes on previous repeal bills this summer — that the new legislation includes the same provisions as past repeal efforts, including “massive” cuts to Medicaid.

Murkowski is considered one of the most crucial senators in Republicans’ effort to whip votes. She, Collins and McCain voted against the last repeal attempt in July.  She has said she wants to see more information about how the bill would impact her state before she makes any decisions.

Community Catalyst Action Fund previously spent $1.5 million on TV ads over the summer to oppose earlier repeal efforts, The Washington Post reported.

“This bill is a last-ditch effort to turn back the clock and go back to the same damaging, secretive and partisan approach to repeal the Affordable Care Act and to cut Medicaid,” the non-profit’s executive director Robert Restuccia said in a statement. “Senators should reject the Graham-Cassidy repeal plan. Americans want Congress to abandon efforts to repeal the ACA and work in a bipartisan fashion to make our health care better and more affordable, accessible and equitable.” 

Listen to the advertisement running on Alaska radio stations below:

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