In Fracas on Health Coverage, Some Democrats Feel Exposed - The National Republican Senatorial Committee raised $3.8 million in October, its best monthly showing of the year.- The federally run exchange for N.H. has attracted only one insurance provider, which touched off a furor when it excluded 10 of the state’s 26 hospitals from the health plans it offers through the exchange.

From The New York Times:

For Democrats across the country, the reversal of political fortunes over the past month has been head-spinning. In mid-October, as Republicans were contending with voter fury over a 16-day government shutdown, Democrats had the momentum. In polls, a growing number of voters said they wanted the party to control Congress after next year’s election. Emboldened, a wave of strong recruits entered House contests. Democrats’ control of the Senate seemed secure. Money was flowing.
      

Then the problems with the Internet-based health exchanges came into focus, followed by millions of letters from insurance companies canceling individual policies that did not meet the health law’s minimum coverage requirements. Republicans found their voice. Democrats lost theirs. The polling gap closed, and Republican wallets opened. The National Republican Senatorial Committee raised $3.8 million in October, its best monthly showing of the year.

 

New Hampshire may be ground zero in the political war over the Affordable Care Act, a state where the three Democratic members of the congressional delegation are under serious threat because of the fumbled rollout of the health care law. Suddenly they must balance their loyalty to the White House with the needs of an angry constituency that has had to absorb some of the worst problems with the new law.

      

The problems are many. The Tea Party-fueled legislature passed a law prohibiting the governor from setting up a state health insurance exchange, so the state must rely on the faulty federal government website, HealthCare.gov. So far, only 269 people have signed up for a plan that way, a total dwarfed by the number of residents whose policies have been canceled.

 

What is worse, the federally run exchange for the state has attracted only one insurance provider, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, which touched off a furor when it excluded 10 of the state’s 26 hospitals from the health plans it offers through the exchange. Residents in the north of New Hampshire may have to drive an hour to find a hospital or doctor in their network. The Democratic governor, Maggie Hassan, is locked in a fight with the Republican-controlled Senate over how or whether to expand Medicaid as part of the health law.

 

The state’s two House members, Ms. Kuster and Carol Shea-Porter, are facing combative Republican challengers and a wave of caustic attacks over the health law. Both broke rank with their leaders and the White House on Friday, voting for a Republican bill to reinstate insurance policies that had been canceled for failing to meet minimum standards set by the Affordable Care Act, and to let insurance companies enroll more people in such plans.    

 

 For Democrats, voting for Republican health care bills may not be a political panacea. After Friday’s vote, the National Republican Congressional Committee mocked vulnerable Democrats who voted yes as political turncoats running from past votes. Ms. Shea-Porter, the New Hampshire congresswoman, said she understood that — and had no intention of playing down her support for the health law, which cost her a House seat in the 2010 wave before she won it back in 2012.