Durenberger urges Republicans to vote no on ACA repeal efforts

As the Senate prepares to vote Tuesday on its Republican leaders' quest to demolish the Affordable Care Act, a former GOP senator from a more bipartisan time is pleading with his successors to resist "bullying" to support a bill they do not yet understand.

Former Minnesota Sen. David Durenberger, a centrist who worked on health care policies during his nearly two decades in the Senate and ever since, said in an Op-Ed published Monday in USA Today that, even for Republicans who have promised for years to repeal the ACA, ­"voting on this hodgepodge of mysterious bills is not the way."

In his Op-Ed, he excoriated Senate Republicans for considering bills that "will radically change how people get coverage and who can afford their care" without the chamber's normal deliberative process.

"You ask questions. You hold hearings. You understand what it would mean to your constituents. You listen to those who know the system. And when it doesn't add up, you vote against it," he wrote.

"Never in all my years did I experience the level of bullying we see today," added Durenberger, who left office in 1995 and held a variety of prominent health policy roles after that.

WASHINGTON POST