Republicans are touting a grainy video of Democrat Ron Barber passionately campaigning for passage of the health-care overhaul bill in September 2009 as evidence he has been dishonest with voters about his role in getting the Democrat-backed law approved.
The GOP and Republican congressional candidate Jesse Kelly have repeatedly linked Barber to "Obamacare" in TV ads and mailers.
In response, Barber has said he wasn't in office to vote on the law, and that his job as former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' district director did not include drafting bills. He has also said the law was "far from perfect," and proposed keeping good aspects while revising bad aspects.
When asked during last week's KUAT debate if he would have voted for the bill if he were in Congress at the time, Barber said he couldn't answer a hypothetical question like that. He said he would need to read the 2,700-page bill and talk to Congressional District 8 residents before making that decision.
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But his statements to a pro-health-care-reform rally at about the time the bill was introduced in Congress in 2009 leave no doubt where he stood on passage of a health-care bill, which was ultimately approved the following March after numerous modifications.
"Health-care reform has to happen this year," Barber said then, drawing cheers. "People who are opposed to health care have been able to demonize what we are trying to do, and regrettably, they've been fairly effective for a while. But this kind of gathering tonight tells me the tide is turning.
"We can no longer have a situation in our country, the most prosperous country in the world, where 50 million Americans go without health care," Barber said. "We cannot have a situation in this country where people all across this land are going into bankruptcy because they cannot afford to pay medical-care costs."
He said profits are keeping many people out of the health-care system and that the country cannot continue to send a message to people without health care who end up in the emergency room that it doesn't care about them getting prevention and primary care.
Jessica Schultz, a Barber spokeswoman, said portraying the two-year-old video as proof of Barber flip-flopping on his position is laughable.
Although Barber spoke of the need to pass health-care reform by the end of the year and referred to provisions being hotly debated at the time, Schultz said he was really just talking that day in general terms about a broken health-care system that needs to be fixed, which she said is the same message he's delivered throughout this campaign.
"Ron stands by the idea that health care needs to be reformed and improved," Schultz said. "That's what Ron is talking about in that video."
Schultz asserted the legislation hadn't been written yet when Barber spoke that day. The video does not show an exact date, but rather the month: September 2009. The Affordable Care Act was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on Sept. 17, 2009. It was signed into law by President Obama on March 23, 2010.
But John Ellinwood, Kelly's spokesman, said the video shows Barber was clearly involved in pushing for the bill in 2009-10.
"He's not being honest with the voters about what he stands for," Ellinwood said. "The video clearly shows he supports 'Obamacare.' He's trying to run away from his position of having supported it."
Kelly says he would repeal the law.
The five-minute video was originally posted online by Breitbart.com, whose founder, the late Andrew Breitbart, was sometimes linked to the tea party.
The emergence of the video is an ironic turnaround for the Barber campaign, which has, for more than a month, hammered Kelly with videos of remarks made during his failed congressional race two years ago about wanting to privatize and phase out Social Security and Medicare. They've slammed Kelly's pledge this go-round to protect the programs as a disingenuous trick, based on the things he said two years ago.
Contact reporter Brady McCombs at bmccombs@azstarnet.com or 573-4213.
