Health Law Emerges As Hot-Button Issue In Missouri Politics
Issues related to the sweeping health overhaul are playing out in a state-wide ballot referendum and in GOP nomination races.
Kaiser Health News: Missouri Ballot Referendum Makes Health Law A Hot Issue
The continuing war over President Barack Obama's health care law is particularly fierce this election season in Missouri, where politicians of both parties are playing a game of can-you-top this with a ballot referendum whose chief result promises to be voter confusion" (Gugliotta, 8/5).
St. Louis Beacon: Campaign Trail: ACA Becomes GOP Weapon Against Each Other
The federal health-care law may not seem to have much to do with a statewide office with the responsibility for running elections and registering businesses. In the case of the secretary of state's contest, both state senators released ads this week accusing Schoeller of supporting President Barack Obama's signature domestic achievement. Rupp's ad, for instance, accused Schoeller of voting to "implement Obamacare in Missouri, the largest job-killing tax increase in American history" (Rosenbaum, 8/3)
The New York Times: Outside Cash In Missouri Race Could Be A National Model
In their advertisements, Ms. McCaskill's face is sometimes bloated, sometimes goofy, sometimes exhausted. She is usually joined at the hip with President Obama. And she is always almost single-handedly to blame for Missouri's economic travails, the nation's skyrocketing debt, the Democrats' health care law and a scandalous level of duplicity (Weisman, 8/5).
Meanwhile, in Wisconsin -
Los Angeles Times: Wisconsin Republican Replaces Pragmatism With Conservatism
There was a time when Tommy G. Thompson, the former Wisconsin governor and health secretary in the George W. Bush administration, cultivated a reputation as a Republican pragmatist known for cutting deals with Democrats to get things done. That was so pre-tea party. … Opposition to the healthcare overhaul has become a litmus test for Republicans, and all four candidates have vowed to demand the law's repeal. For Thompson, however, the issue involves an awkward pivot not unlike the one employed in the presidential campaign by Romney, who created a similar insurance mandate in Massachusetts (Secter, 8/3).