Folks, if you weren’t paying attention to the U.S. Senate race in Virginia, that needs to change right now.
Just take a look at what one of the leading candidates vying for the Republican nomination had to say this week:
In a recent interview, U.S. Senate hopeful Hung Cao was asked about his position on health care policy. He stated, “No one in the United States is like, ‘Oh my gosh, I will die if I don’t have health care.’”
Actually, that’s exactly what would happen. But Cao and others running for the GOP nomination are still running on slashing health care coverage. They want to rip health care away from the 400,000 Virginians who signed up for coverage through the Affordable Care Act — to say nothing of the 20 million people across the U.S. who signed up just last year.
The GOP’s callous health care policy reflects a woefully out-of-touch position. They don’t realize — or worse, they don’t care! — how many Virginians rely on the ACA’s protections to stay alive and healthy.
Tim Kaine has worked to not only protect the Affordable Care Act, but to strengthen and expand it. He even introduced legislation to create a low-cost public option that would allow Americans to choose between the existing private insurance plans or a public one.
Here’s the problem: Recent polling shows the GOP within striking distance here in Virginia. And national Republicans have promised to spend huge sums to elect both Donald Trump and whoever the VA GOP nominates for Senate. So we need to fight back.
