Iowa ads tout Rubio assault on Obamacare

The Super PAC backing GOP presidential hopeful Marco Rubio is plunking down $1.4 million for television and digital ads in Iowa, and has begun airing a new spot arguing the Florida senator dealt a devastating blow to the Affordable Care Act.

In the ad, from Conservative Solutions PAC, a narrator says that 'some talked tough” about the health law 'but got nowhere.” Rubio, on the other hand, 'conceived and pushed a plan that will all but kill Obamacare,” the narrator says, citing an Internet publication American Thinker.

In emails to supporters and on the campaign trail, Rubio has touted the claim that he scored a victory against the law.

Rubio is in a tight race in Iowa with Sen. Ted Cruz, Donald Trump and Ben Carson, and successfully making the argument he has hobbled Obamacare, a law Republicans hate, could be a big boost to his campaign.

News reports by the Associated Press and Washington Post have questioned his claims of victory, giving most of the credit to others.

Rubio's argument stems from a 2013 bill he introduced aimed at killing a provision in the Affordable Care Act, referred to as 'risk corridors,” that provided funding to insurance companies in the event they incurred losses on the ACA exchanges in their first three years. The provision, which Rubio called a 'bailout,” was based on the idea that because the exchanges were new, insurers might not be able to accurately predict what their claims would be and could need a financial backstop.

Rubio's 2013 bill wasn't passed, but a provision that congressional Republicans got inserted into a big spending bill has kept a lid on risk corridor spending.

The question is, how much credit does Rubio deserve for the provision.

An Associated Press 'fact check” earlier this month reported that rather than the 'frontal assault” Rubio's bill represented, what has worked to neutralize funding for the corridors was 'an inside maneuver” by other Republicans and their staffers that 'restricted the administration's legal authority to make payments to insurers under the program.”

The Washington Post's Fact Checker also says Rubio has gone 'way too far” in claiming credit.

Rubio's defenders, including in other publications, have fought back, saying it was Rubio who brought the issue to the fore - and that none of it would have happened without him.

A New York Times story also gave Rubio the credit for the provision.

Jeff Sadosky, a spokesman for the PAC, said in an email Wednesday: 'Going as far back as 2013, when Rubio introduced legislation addressing the issue, there's been only one candidate for president fighting the taxpayer-funded bailout of the insurance industry and showing the GOP the path to defeating Obamacare,” he said.

It's not clear how much impact the disputed provision will have. The Associated Press questioned whether the risk corridors have been disabled permanently, saying the Obama administration intends to make payments with future revenues.

The Conservative Solutions ad is running statewide. Records filed with the Federal Election Commission say the PAC has purchased $1.2 million in television airtime, with most of the rest of its buy paying for digital ads.