{"id":34071,"date":"2018-10-21T13:04:34","date_gmt":"2018-10-21T20:04:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=34071"},"modified":"2018-10-21T13:04:34","modified_gmt":"2018-10-21T20:04:34","slug":"republican-health-care-lies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2018\/10\/21\/republican-health-care-lies\/","title":{"rendered":"Republican Health Care Lies"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the election approaches, Republicans are getting sleazier and sleazier in their attempts to fool voters.  I’ve noticed that in local ads of candidates for state office, some are Democrats.  Others do not identify a political party, but from the positions they advertise, they must be Democrats.  But when I check out that latter group, I find that they are Republicans, whose positions are the opposite of what the ads claim.  Check before you vote.  Since health care is the issue that matters most to voters, Republicans are falsely claiming to be the defenders, not the destroyers they are.<\/font><\/p>\n

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Congressional Republicans spent much of 2017 trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act. After a failed drive to pass a repeal bill\u2014the American Health Care Act<\/a>\u2014they successfully voted to end the individual mandate, a key element of the law that helps stabilize health insurance markets. The Trump administration has also tried to undermine Obamacare, loosening rules, reducing outreach, slashing payments to insurers, and throwing insurance markets into chaos. And at the state level, Republican attorneys general have filed suit in an effort to abolish the law in its entirety.<\/p>\n

Republicans still want to repeal Obamacare, but they\u2019re telling voters the opposite. On the campaign trail, Republican candidates are stalwart defenders of the Affordable Care Act and its most popular provision: a regulation that prohibits insurers from discriminating on the basis of pre-existing conditions. More than obfuscation or spin, this is outright lying. And as they do it, Republicans are showing contempt for voters, and further fraying our ability to doelectoral democracy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI support forcing insurance companies to cover all pre-existing conditions,\u201d says Josh Hawley, running for Senate in Missouri, in a television ad defending his record from opponent Sen. Claire McCaskill. And yet, as state attorney general, Hawley joined a lawsuit<\/a> that, if successful, would wipe out the Affordable Care Act, including its protections for patients with pre-existing conditions. The lawsuit, in fact, specifically argues<\/a> those provisions have no constitutional basis.<\/p>\n

In his final debate with challenger Beto O\u2019Rourke, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz similarly pledged to protect those with pre-existing conditions. \u201cWe can protect pre-existing conditions, and you need to understand, everyone agrees we\u2019re going to protect pre-existing conditions.\u201d But Cruz is a front-line fighter in the war against Obamacare and has been for years. In 2013, he shut down the federal government in a drive to defund the law. During the 2016 Republican presidential primary, Cruz outlined his vision<\/a> for health care with a pledge to \u201crepeal every word of Obamacare,\u201d offering an alternative that made no mention of patients with pre-existing conditions. This summer, when asked the lawsuit that would gut the law and those protections, Cruz defended the suit<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sen. Dean Heller of Nevada has also cast himself as a defender of protections for patients with pre-existing conditions as he fights a tough re-election race against Rep. Jacky Rosen of the state\u2019s 3rd District. \u201cI\u2019m fighting to protect pre-existing conditions and increase funding for Nevadans who need it most. Jacky, I\u2019ll stack my record up against yours any day,\u201d he says in a recent television ad. But Heller, like Cruz, is an opponent of Obamacare. And while Heller voted against the most far-reaching Republican repeal bill, he backed a measure<\/a> that would have let states eliminate pre-existing condition protections…<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Slate Magazine<\/a>><\/font><\/p>\n

Those are just a few.  There are many more examples.<\/font><\/p>\n

Joy Reid covered the issue in detail on AM Joy.<\/font><\/p>\n

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