Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 09:50 pm
Congressional Republicans are avoiding open public meetings with constituents because they are fearful of the growing backlash towards repealing Obamacare.
The Washington Post reported:
Seven years after unruly Democratic town halls helped stoke public outrage over the Affordable Care Act, Republicans now appear keen to avoid the kind of dust-ups capable of racking up millions of views on YouTube and ending up in a 2018 campaign commercial. Only a handful of GOP lawmakers have held or are planning to host in-person town hall meetings open to all comers — the sort of large-scale events that helped feed the original Obamacare backlash in the summer of 2009.
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Instead, lawmakers are increasingly turning to more controlled forums like telephone town halls, as well as Facebook Q&As and smaller, unpublicized personal meetings that cannot so easily be filmed.
Lawmakers who are being paid with taxpayers dollars are holding meetings that they aren’t publicizing because they don’t want the public to attend and ask them questions about their plan to take health care away from up to 30 million Americans.
Congressional Republicans are refusing to be held accountable for the actions that they are taking. The Republicans are hoping that if they avoid public meetings with their own constituents, no one will notice that they have lost their health insurance.
Judging from their behavior, Republicans know that what they are doing is wrong, which is why they are going to such great lengths to avoid voters. If Republicans and Trump take access to health care away from tens of millions of Americans, there will be no safe place to hide. Voters aren’t going to forget who took their health care away.
It isn’t going to all blow over.
Republicans know they are on the wrong side of this issue, which is why they won’t look their constituents in the eyes and tell them the truth.
Congressional Republicans can duck and dodge, but they can’t hide forever from the consequences of repealing the ACA.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
