During a closed-door meeting with constituents this weekend, at which he was jeered by the crowd and called a liar, Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV) became the latest Senate Republican to criticize the House bill that would repeal the Affordable Care Act.
In an audio recording of the event obtained by Politico, Heller tells the gathered Nevadans that Congress “ought to embrace what’s good in the Affordable Care Act” and not scrap its protections and subsidies entirely.
Heller also voiced opposition to Republican lawmakers’ efforts to speed up the demise of Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, which has extended coverage to nearly 300,000 low-income Nevadans since 2010. The bill making its way through the House would cap the expansion in 2020 and convert the program into block grants, reducing its funding by hundreds of millions of dollars over time. A conservative faction in the House is pushing for that deadline to be moved up to 2018.
“And my argument for this administration and frankly for leadership on both sides is that’s not enough time for Nevada to adjust. We need time to adjust,” Heller said.
Republicans’ narrow majority in the Senate mean they can only afford to lose two votes on their health care repeal bill. More than a dozen, including Heller, have now openly criticized it and voiced doubts on its ability to pass their chamber.
Heller is considered one of the most vulnerable Republicans running for reelection in 2018. In 2016, Nevada went for both Hillary Clinton and the Democratic candidate for the state’s other Senate seat.
