Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Pence: Despite Best Efforts Of Activists, Americans Know 'Obamacare Must Go'
Vice President Mike Pence joined House Speaker Paul Ryan on Friday in his Wisconsin hometown, promising during an invite-only speech that a replacement plan for the Affordable Care Act would come within days while dismissing recent protests at Republican town halls by people opposed to repealing it. “Despite the best efforts of some activists at some town halls around the country, the American people know Obamacare has failed and Obamacare must go,” Pence told about 350 employees of Blain Supply at the company headquarters in Janesville. (Bauer, 3/3)
In other news —
Senator Shelley Moore Capito, Republican of West Virginia, has voted more than 50 times in Congress to repeal the Affordable Care Act. She plans to do it again this spring. But talking with voters in her impoverished state, which has a high rate of drug addiction, obesity and poor health, has given Ms. Capito a new sense of caution. “I met a woman the other day with a terrible illness,” she said. “She is really sick and really scared.” (Steinhauer, 3/5)
U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham told a rowdy town hall in South Carolina that health care is going to change in the United States. Just don’t ask him for details. “Can I let you in on a little secret? I don’t know what the GOP plan is,” the Republican Graham told the roughly 1,000 people who packed a theatre at Clemson University on Saturday. (Collins, 3/4)
In a rare congressional town hall in North Texas on Saturday, U.S. Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Lewisville, withstood two hours of booing from hundreds of angry constituents at a local high school. It was notable that Burgess was there in the flesh; many of his colleagues have avoided such events during the congressional recess, choosing virtual discussions over rowdy and combative public forums with residents outraged over the Trump administration's recent policies. (Silver, 3/4)
As candidate Donald Trump hammered the Affordable Care Act last year as “a fraud,” “a total disaster” and “very bad health insurance,” more Americans than not seemed to agree with him. Now that President Trump and fellow Republicans show signs of keeping their promise to dump the law, many appear to be having second thoughts. (Hancock, 3/3)
