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When Sen. Tom Carper was shopping for votes to block GOP health care bills, he didn’t just turn to his fellow senators. He turned to their governors. A self-described “recovering governor,” himself, the Delaware Democrat carried out a communications blitz — calling, texting, emailing — and made contact with up to half of them. He skipped out on a Democratic campaign retreat to make a case at the National Governors Association summer meeting in Rhode Island. (Gaudiano, 8/8)

As town halls replace committee meetings during this last stretch of summer, Republican congressmen find themselves facing increasingly critical and at times raucous crowds of voters. Rep. Doug LaMalfa represents a California district that he won by 15 percent and voted overwhelmingly for President Donald J. Trump in 2016, but none of that was apparent Monday as the Republican congressman heard from his harshest critics. Over the course of the hour-long town hall, LaMalfa was on the defensive as constituents booed and asked for his resignation. One man told the congressman, “May you die in pain.” (Stewart, 8/8)

In a dialogue this week largely focused on defeating efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet dismissed another system elsewhere along the ideological spectrum: government-sponsored, or single-payer, health care. Bennet, speaking Monday night at a town hall in Greeley, said the existing system should be the focus. (Backes, 8/8)

U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet on Monday said he couldn’t have designed a bill less responsive to criticisms of the Affordable Care Act than what Republicans have put forth in the past few months, and the Colorado Democrat expressed hope that a recently announced bipartisan effort to repair the individual marketplace will be met with success. “It’s crazy to me that they wrote a bill like that,” Bennet said during a town hall at the University of Northern Colorado. “Can you imagine how hard it would be to say you’re going to repeal ACA for eight years, then you find yourself on the floor of the Senate and you can’t repeal it?” (Silvy, 8/8)

Colorado Democrats on Tuesday, joined by Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez, continued their rallying cry against GOP efforts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, working to drum up support among their liberal base and proclaiming their battle is far from over. “We won, but we have not finished the victory,” Perez said outside of the Colorado Capitol building in Denver, speaking to a crowd of a few dozen people holding signs. “We have won for now. And we have succeeded for now because of all of your stories.” (Paul, 8/8)

A proposal that would allow older Americans to buy in to Medicare at age 55 would also be a “win-win” for the government health insurance program and private insurance markets, sponsoring Sen. Debbie Stabenow said Tuesday. The third-term Michigan Democrat introduced the Medicare at 55 Act last week, as lawmakers left Washington for an August break. Her proposal follows the high-profile collapse of Republican plans to repeal a federal health care law that has not controlled premium increases as originally intended. (Oosting, 8/8)