Friday, June 29, 2012

TheDC’s Political Roundup: Health care edition

On Thursday, the Supreme Court voted to uphold the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare.
Since this has completely stolen the spotlight from almost everything else, this week, Political Roundup will look at several races where Thursday’s ruling will have an affect — in the North Dakota Senate race, where Heidi Heitkamp has been fighting off attacks on Obamacare; and in Wisconsin, where former Gov. Tommy Thompson has been forced to defend a statement he made that many have said proves he supported Obamacare.
1) North Dakota
Obamacare has been front and center in the North Dakota Senate race, with Democrat Heidi Heitkamp fending off attacks on her support for the law as well as her changing position on it.
North Dakota is one of the 26 states involved in a lawsuit challenging the law. Nonetheless, Heitkamp was initially very vocal in her support when it passed in 2010. But earlier this year, she distanced herself from the law a little bit, saying that it had “some good things,” but also had “some serious problems,” including the individual mandate, the North Dakota Blog Flickertales from the Hill reported.
A Thursday statement put out by the campaign after the ruling echoed that sentiment: “Today’s decision is a chance to finally put two years of political posturing and gridlock on pause, and do what’s right for North Dakota,” Heitkamp said. “Moving forward, I’ll work with both parties to control costs, keep the good pieces intact and fix the bad pieces, like the individual mandate.”
Now that she is running for Senate, Heitkamp has taken hits both for her support of the law and for her altered position on it.

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