"Insurance executives" boisterously dance on tables, guzzle Champagne and throw bills in the air as a Democrat running in a competitive House race imagines how the industry would react to a repeal of the Affordable Care Act.
Former Minnesota state Rep. Mike Obermueller (D) is demonstrating that Democrats are increasingly confident with rhetoric around the health care law as he launches a television ad that criticizes his Republican opponent's repeated attempts to vanquish the law.
In the raucous spot, which was first shared with The Huffington Post and will begin airing Friday, Obermueller highlights comments the six-term Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.) made concerning October's federal government shutdown.
“Obamacare is a continued disaster," Kline says. "We had a tactic. We said, 'OK, we're going to let the government shut down' ... so we let the government shut down for 16 days … under these conditions that you defund it or you delay it all. We voted again and again and again and again and again.”
Kline called the Affordable Care Act "indefensible" in March.
“It’s time to hold Congressman Kline accountable for taking $430,000 from the health insurance industry and then voting to allow them to deny care for preexisting conditions, drop coverage for those who get sick, and even charge women more than men,” Obermueller said in a Friday statement accompanying the ad's release. “I’m devoted to fixing the problems with the Affordable Care Act, but we can’t go back to letting the insurance industry do whatever they want, and that’s a big difference between John Kline and me.”
A Democratic source said the ad will air on prime-time cable in Minneapolis as well as online.
Although President Barack Obama carried Minnesota's 2nd District in 2008 and 2012, Kline defeated Obermueller by 8 percentage points in 2012.
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