EDITORIAL: Sen. Dean Heller and health care theater in the Senate

As Senate Republicans go through the motions on health care, they’ve faced withering criticism for failing to deliver on their Obamacare promises. The criticism is justified.

But it’s worth noting that Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is at least allowing amendments and votes on various health care proposals. That’s in stark contrast to his predecessor, Nevada’s own Harry Reid. Sen. Reid, now retired, made it a habit as majority leader of blocking vote after vote on substantive issues — essentially bringing the upper chamber to a halt — in large part because he didn’t want Democrats forced to take potentially unpopular positions on controversial issues.

“It’s not that the Senate has been unproductive; that would be an improvement,” wrote Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post back in 2014. Sen. Reid, she noted, “either won’t take up meaty issues or won’t allow any minority amendments, a practice he has taken further than any modern Senate leader.”

That strategy exploded in Sen. Reid’s face when Republicans gained nine seats in a 2014 midterm rout — knocking out five Democratic incumbents — to take control of the Senate for the first time since 2007.

From that perspective, what we have witnessed this week —roll call votes and amendments, even from minority Democrats — is a welcome development. The result is that both Republicans and Democrats are now on the record when it comes to repealing Obamacare and a number of other related issues.

That includes Nevada Sen. Dean Heller, who for seven years disguised himself as an avowed opponent of the Affordable Care Act. But faced with a potentially competitive reelection campaign next year — and confronted at town hall meetings by shrieking progressive activists — Sen. Heller jammed it into reverse. He was one of just three Senate Republicans to vote against both a partial repeal of Obamacare and a full repeal with a two-year delay on implementing an alternative.

Sen. Heller seems to believe that his newfound devotion to the Affordable Care Act and its expansion of Medicaid to include working adults above the poverty line will inoculate him against Democratic attacks. If so, he’s deluding himself. The progressive hit machine went into full ballistic mode when Sen. Heller simply voted to proceed with debate. Who could be against allowing a full and open debate on the Senate floor?

Sen. Heller should be more concerned about how he now plans to square his shifting viewpoints with voters who took him at his word when he repeatedly pronounced his opposition to Obamacare. Fact is, he’s damaged his credibility with his political base, and it will be hard to take him seriously the next time he pontificates about the importance of market-oriented health care reform or the need to address entitlement spending.