On Thursday, the House of Representatives voted 217-213 to strip millions of Americans of their health insurance coverage. Donald Trump held a premature celebration for them in the White House Rose Garden, and, like all photos of meetings of this administration, it looked a lot like the final shot of The Shining, only with fewer women and a higher body count.
The House is now in recess until May 16, and, conveniently, none of the most electorally vulnerable Republicans who just voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act are hosting town halls while they’re back in their districts. Come November 2018, a lot of them hope you will have completely forgotten what they voted for today. So, for posterity, here’s a list of so-called “moderate” House Republicans who voted for the American Health Care Act.
There are 23 House Republicans who represent districts that voted for Hillary Clinton last November:
Of those 23 Republicans, 14 of them voted for the AHCA, and seven of them are from California: Rep. Jeff Denham (CA-10), Rep. David Valadao (CA-21), Rep. Steve Knight (CA-25), Rep. Ed Royce (CA-39), Rep. Mimi Walters (CA-45), Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (CA-48), and Rep. Darrell Issa (CA-49).
As the Atlantic’s Ron Brownstein points out, Californians have good reason to be grateful for Obamacare (emphasis mine):
One of the most striking patterns in the vote was the support for the legislation among all seven California Republicans in districts that Clinton won last year. Their unanimity—contrasted with the roughly even division among Clinton-district Republicans outside of California—was especially noteworthy because nearly four million people in California have gained coverage under the ACA. That’s more than double the number in any other state, according to Urban Institute calculations. Since 2010, the state’s uninsurance rate has fallen by more than half.
The other seven are: Rep. Carlos Curbelo (FL-26), Rep. Erik Paulsen (MN-3), Rep. Martha McSally (AZ-2), Rep. Pete Roskam (IL-6), Rep. Kevin Yoder (KS-3), Rep. John Culberson (TX-7), and Rep. Pete Sessions (TX-32).
Twenty Republicans voted against the AHCA’s passage, but 19 of them nonetheless voted to bring the bill to the House floor, essentially guaranteeing its success. By voting ‘yea’ on bringing the bill to the floor and then ‘nay’ on passage, these nine members hoped to have their cake and eat it too—to assist their party in killing Obamacare without incurring negative campaign ads about how they “voted to kill Obamacare.”
Here are their names: Rep. Patrick Meehan (PA-7), Rep. Dave Reichert (WA-8), Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL-27), Rep. John Katko (NY-24), Rep. Leonard Lance (NJ-7), Rep. Will Hurd (TX-23), Rep. Mike Coffman (CO-6), Rep. Barbara Comstock (VA-10) and Rep. Ryan Costello (PA-6). Ros-Lehtinen recently announced she plans to retire at the end of her term next year.
The other ten who voted ‘yea’ on agreeing to the resolution but ‘nay’ on passage are: Rep. Andy Biggs (AZ-5), Rep. Charlie Dent (PA-15), Rep. Dan Donovan (NY-11), Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (PA-8), Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (WA-3), Rep. Dave Joyce (OH-13), Rep. Frank LoBiondo (NJ-2), Rep. Thomas Massie (KY-4), Rep. Chris Smith (NJ-4), and Rep. Mike Turner (OH-10).
Just one Republican, Rep. Walter Jones (NC-3), voted against both bringing the AHCA to the floor and against its passage. We see you, Walt. (h/t Jonathan Cohn)
Then there are the Republicans commonly identified as “moderates,” who, though they may have expressed much consternation about the bill, ended up voting for it anyway:
Rep. Fred Upton (MI-6): Upton was crucial to the AHCA winning over the votes of swing district Republicans, after he proposed an amendment that would tack on $8 billion for states to operate “high-risk pools” that would (theoretically) help cover people with pre-existing conditions.
A 2014 study from the Commonwealth Fund found that the Obamacare individual marketplace “is far more desirable for people with preexisting conditions and for plan administrators” than high-risk pools are, and that such pools would lead to much higher premiums for people with pretty much any mental or physical ailment you can think of:
And yes, Upton is related to supermodel Kate Upton (he’s her uncle). Here’s a 2013 photo of the Uptons posing with House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy in the Capitol:
Fun!
Rep. John Faso (NY-19): Last November, Faso beat Democratic candidate Zephyr Teachout to represent New York’s 17th district, which includes much of the Hudson Valley. In March, Faso, along with another upstate New York Republican, proposed an amendment to the AHCA that would have required states to cover Medicaid costs currently paid for by counties—the proposed amendment would have affected only New York, and was designed mainly to let him campaign on lowering property taxes.
The amendment survived, and won Faso’s support for the bill: “After careful review of the changes to the American Health Care Act, I believe that this legislation addresses my concerns and I will support the AHCA as amended,” he said in a statement on Thursday.
Rep. Elise Stefanik (NY-21): Elected in 2014, Stefanik is the only Millennial women in the House Republican conference, and was undecided on her vote up until this week.
“The American Health Care Act is not perfect, but it is an important step in reforming our broken healthcare system to help families in our district,” she said on Thursday. “As this legislation moves to the Senate, I will continue to work to strengthen the support for those with pre-existing conditions.”
Stefanik’s district includes much of New York’s border with Canada, so if any of her constituents need an MRI and don’t want to pay tens of thousands of dollars, they can just hop over to Ottawa.
Rep. Billy Long (MO-7): Long’s daughter is a cancer survivor, which originally led him to oppose the AHCA:
Long switched his vote after Upton’s high-risk pool amendment was added to the bill—even though the $8 billion wouldn’t be anywhere near enough to cover the millions of Americans with pre-existing conditions.
Here are some more names of Republicans who had doubts about the AHCA at first but voted for it on Thursday: Rep. Justin Amash (MI-3), Rep. Doug LaMalfa (CA-01), Rep. Adam Kinzinger (IL-16), Rep. Mark Amodei (NV-2), Rep. Don Young (AK-at large), Rep. Brian Mast (FL-18), and Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (FL-25).
Rep. Jeff Denham (CA-10): Denham “opposed the bill as late as 11 a.m. on Wednesday,” but ultimately flipped with the bill’s inclusion of the Upton amendment.
Rep. Darrell Issa (CA-49): Hey, remember this guy? He led the House’s oversight committee before Jason Chaffetz took over. After vigorously working to rebrand himself as Barack Obama’s BFF, he won back his seat by a razor-thin margin. Here’s a mailer Issa’s campaign sent out last fall in a last-ditch effort to win over independent voters:
If you don’t like what happened, figure out which House district you live in here, find out how your congressman voted on the AHCA here, and consider getting involved with and/or donating to SwingLeft here. Then, over the next 18 months, work on burning these congressmen’s names into your memory like Arya Stark. As the Hound says, “Hate’s a good a thing as any to keep a person going—better than most.”
Correction: This post originally said “none of the Republicans who just voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act are hosting town halls.” In fact, seven of the 217 Republican members who voted “yes” on the AHCA have scheduled town halls during the upcoming recess.
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