75 days before the election, Senator Cory Gardner is attempting to hide from his decade-long record of undermining health care protections for people with pre-existing conditions. But his stunt of a bill doesn’t actually protect the 2.4 million Coloradans with pre-existing conditions; experts say it would still allow insurance companies to deny them coverage.
John Hickenlooper released the following statement:
“The 2.4 million Coloradans with pre-existing conditions deserve a Senator who will stand up for them — not one who spends a decade crusading against their access to health care before attempting to use a sham bill as a political shield weeks before an election. I urge Senator Gardner to quit the political games and actually stand up for Coloradans with pre-existing conditions by dropping his support for Trump’s dangerous lawsuit to overturn the ACA.”
According to Protect Our Care, “In addition to ensuring people with pre-existing conditions are not charged more for coverage, for any bill to fully protect people with pre-existing conditions, it must include the following provisions: preclude insurance companies from denying coverage based on health status, require coverage of essential benefits such as maternity care, cancer treatments, prescription drugs and mental health and substance use disorder treatments, and ban insurers from capping how much they will pay for medical care over a year or during a lifetime for these essential benefits. Senator Gardner’s bill includes none of these provisions.”
This morning, Hickenlooper launched a new ad about his work to expand health coverage to half a million Coloradans and penned an op-ed for the Colorado Sun about his plans to expand coverage and lower health care costs in the U.S. Senate.
By contrast, Senator Gardner supports a lawsuit before the Supreme Court that could rip away coverage from the thousands of Coloradans who gained coverage through Medicaid Expansion and eliminate protections for the millions of Coloradans with pre-existing conditions. He has also voted no fewer than 13 times to repeal, defund, or undermine the Affordable Care Act. His recent attempts to hide from this record earned him “four Pinocchios” from the Washington Post’s fact checker.
