Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, a Democrat from the 18th District in the Lower Hudson Valley, will travel north to attend a forum organized by the Hudson Valley Area Labor Federation in Ulster County. | AP Photo Maloney plans town hall in Faso's district, as health care fallout continues

ALBANY — Fallout over last week’s House vote on the American Health Care Act is continuing across upstate New York, with planned protests, new television ads and a Democratic congressman holding a town hall meeting in the district of his Republican neighbor.

They’re the latest steps in what is expected to be months of politicking over the bill, which was opposed by Democrats but supported by seven of New York’s nine Republican House members.


Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, a Democrat from the 18th District in the Lower Hudson Valley, will travel north to attend a forum organized by the Hudson Valley Area Labor Federation in Ulster County, which is represented by Rep. John Faso, a Republican from Kinderhook.

Faso voted in support of the AHCA last week, and has touted an amendment he and Republican Rep. Chris Collins of Erie County attached to the bill that would effectively force New York State to take over the share of Medicaid borne by counties outside of New York City — a $2.3 billion shift.

Maloney had been needling Faso on Twitter since last week. He said on MSNBC that he would “adopt” Faso’s district.

“I think every Republican who voted for this thing ought to have to stand in front of their voters and explain it," Maloney said. “And if it takes a Democrat to go in and do it for them for a while, I'll explain what's in this bill, and if he doesn't like it, he should stand up and explain it himself.”

Faso, speaking Monday morning on WGDJ-AM, said that Maloney was pulling a “political stunt” two weeks after promising to work across the aisle during a breakfast.

“Frankly, I never really believed his expressions of bipartisanship, based on his history. Remember: he was one of the ones who led the sit-in on the House floor with congressional Democrats a couple of years ago,” Faso said. He also pointed out, disparagingly, that Maloney once worked in Eliot Spitzer's gubernatorial administration.

The Hudson Valley Area Labor Federation announced the forum by declaring: “We deserve to have John Faso answer to why he voted to repeal the ACA, take away healthcare from 65,000 constituents, put 290,000 constituents with pre-existing conditions at risk of losing coverage.” Faso, on the radio, said he was attending other events in the district.

Protesters will gather Monday evening at Mountain Lake PBS, where Rep. Elise Stefanik is set to record a televised town hall to be broadcast throughout her Adirondack district. The event is being organized by Plattsburgh Change Through Action, according to an advisory from SKDKnickerbocker, a public relations firm.

The same firm also issued a press release announcing television ads targeting Stefanik and Faso paid for by Save Our Care, an offshoot of the national group Protect Our Care that includes “literally hundreds of national and local groups that want to ensure all Americans have quality affordable health care,” according to SKDK’s Morgan Hook. It includes SEIU, a union that represents health care workers, as well as the NAACP and Center for American Progress.

Hook did not say who funds the group, but said the New York ads are part of a $500,000 national campaign. The ad calls the bill “disastrous” and notes that it was opposed by the American Medical Association, American Cancer Societ and AARP.

Click here to watch the Faso ad and the Stefanik ad.