Heller and Heck: Health Care Hypocrisy

Las Vegas, NV — Voting today to repeal health insurance reform, Reps. Dean Heller and Joe Heck have shown they value pandering to the extreme right more than working across party lines to improve the quality of life for hard working Nevadans.

In one of their first major acts in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, Heller and Heck have struck a reckless tone. By favoring repeal, both have signaled they are comfortable with raising taxes on over 30,000 small businesses, reopening the Medicare Part D donut-hole for nearly 60,000 Nevada seniors, allowing insurance companies to deny coverage for Nevada children with pre-existing conditions, and removing access to health insurance for young adults struggling to pay for college.

Worse, it’s also a shameful case of naked political hypocrisy when Heller and Heck -- both of whom have access to Congressional health care plans -- vote to take away similar coverage options from Nevadans.  This fact was not lost on former Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul, who in a recent interview acknowledged Republicans could be considered hypocrites for favoring repeal while enjoying taxpayer subsidized health care -- especially when around 97% of House GOP members have decided to hold onto their Congressional health plans.

It seems in their zeal to appease the TEA Party elements that backed their elections, both Heller and Heck must have missed the new AP-GfK poll conducted over the weekend that showed only one in four Americans support full repeal of health insurance reform.

But the political tone-deafness doesn’t stop there.

While Republicans claim to be concerned about raising the deficit, they refuse to acknowledge that repealing health reform “will add $230 billion dollars to the deficit, leave 32 million fewer people with insurance and lead to higher costs for those who are covered,” according to the non-partisan and independent Congressional Budget Office.

“Reps. Dean Heller and Joe Heck should be embarrassed with their vote to repeal health insurance reform,” said Sam Lieberman, Chair of the Nevada State Democratic Party. “While Nevadans are struggling to provide their families with quality, affordable health insurance, Heller and Heck have decided to take a ‘Do as I say, not as I do’ approach in denying Nevada families the same health insurance options they benefit from in being members of Congress.”