| Phoenix — For months, it’s been clear that Senator Kyrsten Sinema is hurting Democrats and President Biden by tanking policies that would help Americans – policies that are widely popular. But new analysis published yesterday in the Washington Post makes clear the sheer human cost of the Senator’s politics of obstruction and insistence on shrinking the reconciliation package – and shows why so many Arizona Democrats are backing efforts like PrimarySinema.com and calling for a primary challenge to Sinema. One way to meet Sinema’s arbitrary demands would be to scrap the Democratic plan to expand Medicare to cover dental, vision and hearing treatment – which Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation, says could mean that 62 million seniors and other eligible Americans currently in line to benefit could lose out on coverage. Another option would be to abandon the proposal to expand Medicaid coverage to the 12 Republican-controlled states that have refused to do so through the ACA. But that would leave 2.2 million Americans in the Medicaid ‘coverage gap’ – people just above the threshold to qualify for Medicaid, but who don’t earn enough to qualify for ACA subsidies – unable to afford healthcare. “These are all poor, uninsured adults,” Levitt says. “Fifty-nine percent are people of color. The Medicaid gap is not only the biggest hole in the ACA; it also raises fundamental questions of equity.” In other words, Sinema wants Democrats to either cut health care for seniors or cut health care for the poor. Both options would be harmful to large swaths of Americans, but also political malpractice for Democrats heading into a critical midterm year and herself in 2024, as evidenced by recent polling from Data for Progress. Sinema has also opposed widely popular drug pricing reforms, in fact she even opposes the narrower variation of the plan from conservative House Democrats that would impose limits on which drugs were subject to Medicare negotiation. But a recent OH poll commissioned by AARP Arizona found that a remarkable 94% of Arizona voters support allowing Medicare to negotiate for the price of drugs. This is all out of an arbitrary demand for less spending for no particular reason, or at least no reason that she’s cared to explain to her constituents. Instead of stating what she believes in, she has cozied up to donors and has now jetted off to Europe for a fundraising trip. And while Sinema claims we cannot pay for policies that would help millions of Americans, she is also the primary obstacle to the policy that would pay for them: raising taxes on the rich and large corporations. Again, this is bad policy and bad politics: according to Data For Progress, 88% of primary voters said they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who supports tax hikes for the rich and corporations. She even doubled down on this politically damaging strategy yesterday. It’s clear that Sen. Sinema’s strategy of participating in Republican obstruction of Biden’s agenda has failed. Yesterday’s poll from Data For Progress made it clear that Sinema is deep underwater in Arizona and would lose to a primary challenger if the election was held today. QUOTE from the Primary Sinema Project: “From opposing some of the most important priorities for Arizonans that she herself ran on just three years ago, to galavanting in Europe in the midst of critical negotiations in the Senate, Kyrsten Sinema has made the case better than anyone else could: she deserves a primary challenge.” |