“So far the attitude’s been ‘take it or leave it’,” Sen. Heidi Heitkamp said. “And I think that’s not really an invitation to negotiate.” | AP Photo Red-state Dems pounce on Obamacare repeal bill

Red-state Democratic senators who once hoped for a bipartisan fix to Obamacare now have nothing to work with but the House GOP’s repeal plan. So they’re lining up to trash it.

All 10 Senate Democrats up for reelection next year in states won by President Donald Trump joined their leaders in vilifying the Obamacare repeal passed by the House passed Thursday. That unity stems from a Democratic belief that the GOP repeal bid is backfiring, making Obamacare more popular. But it also reflects the only viable response in light of a squeeze play by Senate Republicans, who are pushing through their repeal plan with no minority input.


“So far the attitude’s been ‘take it or leave it’,” North Dakota Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp said in an interview. “And I think that’s not really an invitation to negotiate.”

Vulnerable Democratic senators are walking a fine line on health care, trying to survive in states Trump took handily on a repeal-and-replace platform, while also opposing a far-reaching proposal that enrages their anti-Trump base. And even as they eke out less high-profile victories to promote to voters back home, those Democrats know Republicans are blocking their path to bipartisan accomplishments on what’s likely to be the most important issue of their reelection campaigns.

The House bill won over several moderate Republicans after the addition of $8 billion for some states to bring down the cost of covering patients with pre-existing conditions.

But Heitkamp called the money “a very small concession in a very bad bill.” And she knocked the House plan’s tax cut for high-income individuals who have helped finance Obamacare.

Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), who’s running for reelection next year in a state Trump won by 20 percentage points, called for “people in Congress to get off their political soapboxes so we can work on real solutions” for health care costs. But with those soapboxes looking higher than ever Thursday, Tester didn’t hold back from slamming the GOP repeal plan.

“The House is forcing seniors to pay more, jeopardizing health care for Montana women, and failing to address the rising costs that are draining pocketbooks,” he said in a statement.

Sen. Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.), whose state went for Trump by 19 percentage points, called the House bill “disastrous,” adding in a statement, “We should be making our health care system better, not worse.”

Like Heitkamp, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) made a point of reminding voters in a statement that she has long backed “changes to fix the current law.”

But McCaskill, one of the GOP’s top targets for 2018, then teed off on the House Obamacare repeal as anything but “a solution. It’s a disaster for Missouri families.”

It wasn’t a given that red-state Democratic senators would so readily side with their more liberal leaders in opposing the GOP’s Obamacare repeal plan, particularly considering how many of them started off the year interested in working with Republicans to tweak the 2010 health care law.

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But the decision by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) to fast-track repeal under so-called budget reconciliation procedures — giving McConnell the freedom to lose two GOP votes and still kill Obamacare with a simple majority — has put red-state Democrats in a box. And they’re responding by giving Minority Leader Chuck Schumer the freedom to promise activists recently that “all 48” of his Democrats would remain united against Obamacare repeal.

West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin said Thursday at a POLITICO Playbook event that 172,000 people in his deep-red state got insurance for the first time under Obamacare. “They don’t know how they got it, they don’t know who gave it to them,” he said he told Trump, before warning, “They’re going to know who took it away from them.”

Among the Senate Democrats facing voters next year in states that Trump more narrowly carried, the House’s Obamacare repeal is an even easier target. Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), and Bob Casey (D-Pa.) were all among the bill’s biggest critics from the start.

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), who’s already grappling with multiple potential primary challengers and a possible face-off with Gov. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) in their Trump-won state, relished the opportunity to put pressure on the other side of the aisle for once.

“I would not want to be a Republican senator who was voting to severely cut Medicaid,” Nelson told reporters, predicting that the Senate GOP would try to write their own repeal bill “if they bring anything to the floor.”

Asked about House Republicans’ Rose Garden celebration with Trump, Nelson quipped: “What are they celebrating? What, that they’re going to cut Medicaid? That ... even if the state keeps [covering] preexisting conditions, they don’t have enough money there for insurance companies to afford to pay?”