WASHINGTON — Embattled Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins isn’t happy that Vice President JD Vance announced the Trump administration is booting close to 760,000 Americans off Obamacare exchanges about 40 days before this fall’s midterm elections.
“Are you annoyed with the administration for taking 750,000 people off Obamacare right ahead of the election?” Raw Story asked Senator Collins (R-ME).
“That seems like an overreach to me,” Collins told Raw Story as a flock of congressional reporters listened in at the U.S. Capitol.
What may be worse for Collins and other GOP incumbents on the ballot this November is that some of their Republican colleagues are calling for even more Americans to lose the health insurance they were provided under the Obama-era Affordable Care Act [ACA].
Vice President Vance, who’s charged with leading an anti-fraud task force, claims the roughly 760,000 names being removed from Obamacare rolls are fraudsters — a sentiment echoed by the MAGA wing of the GOP on Capitol Hill.
“Because of the enhanced [ACA] subsidies, there are estimates there were six million completely fraudulent that are signed up — either didn’t exist or certainly were unaware of it,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) told Raw Story. “So 750,000 is probably just a good start.”
“You’d like to see more?” Raw Story pressed the chair of the Senate Budget Committee.
“I don’t want anybody helping mortgage our children’s future that aren’t eligible for these benefits,” Johnson continued. “I wouldn’t think any American would want to see that.”
Johnson’s eager to work alongside Vance’s anti-fraud task force if the GOP’s able to maintain control of the Senate in the New Year.
“I certainly want to be working with the vice president’s task force and see what they’re coming up with,” Johnson said. “You’re just scratching the surface in terms of uncovering, you know, massive fraud because we make it easy for fraudsters to fleece the American taxpayer and government.”
While more moderate Republicans running in the last purple-ish states remaining are distancing themselves from Vance’s effort, Republicans running for higher office in red states are pressuring Vance to find even more than his initial 750,000 to remove from federal health exchanges.
“Do you think J.D. Vance did a good job?” Raw Story asked Alabama gubernatorial candidate Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL).
“Yeah. I mean, good job; this is the first group that ever tried to clean it up,” Tuberville told Raw Story. “We’re losing hundreds of millions of dollars a day to fraud. We can’t afford it.”
“Some people say your party’s, you know, punishing the ‘least of these?’” Raw Story pressed.
“Punishing what?” Tuberville asked.
“‘The the least of these’ — biblical reference,” Raw Story explained of the Bible verse Matthew 25:40 (“’Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me’”).
“The least of these?” Tuberville asked again.
“The least of these — the poor people — that they’re getting punished,” Raw Story explained.
“Well, we’re all getting punished,” Tuberville replied. “We’re all in the same boat.”
Democrats wept.
“If the idea is to clean up the rolls, there’s a way to do this,” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) told Raw Story. “This is about punishing poor people.”
To Schatz — who’s rumored to be a potential replacement as Democratic leader once current Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) retires — this is just the latest episode in the GOP’s sustained attack on so-called Obamacare.
“This is what they wanted to do all along,” Schatz said. “It’s going to raise prices, and it’s a hell of a closing message.”
While it may bolster their party’s affordability argument ahead of the election, Democrats are demanding receipts.
“I want to know more,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) — Senate Democrat’s number two in command — told Raw Story. “They say it’s “fraud” — I want to establish that fact.”
“Because there’s just no trust?” Raw Story pressed the retiring Democratic leader.
“No trust,” Durbin replied. “They’ve been trying to do in Obamacare for more than a decade. Now they’re just going to let people off the rolls. Let’s see the proof.”
It’s not just Democrats.
Some Republican incumbents, like Susan Collins, who’s fighting for her political life up in Maine, say they aren’t buying the White House’s latest fraud claim just yet.
“I don’t know what the basis is,” Collins told Raw Story while boarding one of the Capitol’s underground trams. “But it strikes me as problematic.”
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