Sen. McSally celebrates endorsement from group trying to kill health care

Sen. Martha McSally (R-AZ) this week touted an endorsement she received from the National Federation of Independent Businesses — a conservative group that has been on the front lines of the nearly decade-long fight to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

“I am proud to have @NFIB endorse my campaign. I have always been a fighter for Arizona’s small businesses. The Great American Comeback is on the way!” McSally tweeted Wednesday night.

The NFIB — which spends money almost exclusively trying to elect GOP candidates, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics — is vehemently against the ACA, better known as Obamacare.

The group filed the lawsuit that led the Supreme Court in 2012 to rule Obamacare’s individual mandate was constitutional — a landmark case that preserved the law.

Despite losing that fight, the NFIB has continued to fight for an Obamacare repeal, writing in a blog post after the Supreme Court ruling in 2012, “[W]e will never give up, and we will never give in. Today we have suffered a terrible setback, but we will press on.”

The group supported the American Health Care Act back in 2017, the House-passed bill that would have caused 23 million Americans to lose their health coverage, and would have prevented those living with preexisting conditions from purchasing health insurance. McSally supported that legislation, infamously saying to her then-House colleagues that they needed to get this “fucking thing” done — only for the bill to fail in the Senate.

Ultimately, McSally touting her endorsement from the group that has crusaded against Obamacare is part of her duplicitous effort to claim she supports preexisting conditions protections, even though she’s voted against them multiple times.

She’s run ads that lie about her record, and has been called out by her constituents for those lies.

McSally faces an uphill battle for reelection. Multiple nonpartisan political handicapping organizations predict she will lose reelection to her Democratic opponent, Mark Kelly.

The senator, appointed to carry out the remainder of the late-Sen. John McCain’s term in 2018, has only led in one poll since January. That poll came from an unreliable pollster, Gravis Marketing, which typically skews Republican.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.