Latinos to GOP: It’s not your message, it’s your policies
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
The L.A. Times' Noam Levey reports today, "As Republican leaders try to woo Latino voters with a new
openness to legal status for the nation's illegal immigrants, the party
remains at odds with America's fastest-growing ethnic community on
another key issue: healthcare."
It turns out that Latinos support "ObamaCare" (this is where the GOP's titular leader, Rush Limbaugh, claims it is because Latinos "depend on government for their prosperity.” ) Healthcare an obstacle as Republicans court Latinos:
Latinos, who have the lowest rates of health coverage in the country, are among the strongest backers of President Obama's
healthcare law. In a recent national poll, supporters outnumbered
detractors by more than 2 to 1. Latinos also overwhelmingly see
guaranteeing healthcare as a core government responsibility, surveys
show.
Yet congressional Republicans continue to make repeal of the 2010 Affordable Care Act a top agenda item and have renewed calls for deep cuts in health programs such as Medicaid, which are very popular with Latinos.
"Obamacare is a colossal mistake for our country," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said recently in a speech on the Senate floor. "It needs to be pulled out by its roots."
[A]ttacking the law risks undermining the RNC's planned minority
outreach campaign, which party leaders said in a recent strategy
blueprint must convince Latinos "we care about them."
"This is going to hurt Republicans," said Matt Barreto, cofounder of
Latino Decisions, a nonpartisan national polling firm. "When Republicans
keep saying they will repeal the health law, Latinos hear the party is
going to take away their healthcare."
Obama, meanwhile, made upholding the Affordable Care Act a core part of
his Latino strategy. A quarter of the president's advertising in Spanish
focused on the law, said James Aldrete, who oversaw Spanish-language
media strategy for Obama in 2008 and 2012. "We knew from the start that,
if Latinos knew about the benefits of the law, they were going back the
president," he said. "It was central to our messaging."
* * *
Surveys indicate that close to 30% of Latino citizens and legal
permanent residents lack health insurance. By comparison, just 11% of
white and 17% of black Americans are uninsured, according to the latest
data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Starting next year, the health law will provide hundreds of millions
of dollars in subsidies to low-income Americans and legal residents to
help pay insurance premiums. Illegal immigrants cannot receive these
subsidies.