9NEWS: Gardner’s Health Care Stunt is “Horse Excrement”

Gardner’s bill “does not require an insurance company to take you on in the first place”

Kaiser Family Foundation: “This bill from Senator Gardner falls well short of providing comprehensive protections for people with pre-existing conditions”

Denver, CO - Senator Cory Gardner’s stunt health care bill “is actually horse excrement” according to a must-watch report from 9News, which found that the 117-word bill still allows insurance companies to deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions.

Nonpartisan experts at the Kaiser Family Foundation explain that “this bill from Senator Gardner falls well short of providing comprehensive protections for people with pre-existing conditions.” When 9News tried to ask Gardner about the bill, he refused to speak with them. 

Gardner’s desperate election-year attempt to hide his record of crusading against the Affordable Care Act (ACA) -- including voting at least 13 times to repeal, block, or defund the ACA and supporting the GOP lawsuit that could eliminate protections for 2.4 million Coloradans with pre-existing conditions -- has been slammed by healthcare experts and advocates across the board.

Watch 9News’ Kyle Clark and Marshall Zelinger expose Gardner’s sham bill:

MARSHALL ZELLINGER: “Yes, Gardner has a voting history to weaken the Affordable Care Act, including coverage for those with pre-existing conditions. Which brings us to a bill Gardner introduced two weeks ago, the bill is entitled To Ensure Coverage Of Pre-Existing Conditions Under Private Health Insurance. The eight line bill does require insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions, it just does not require an insurance company to take you on in the first place.” 

KAISER FAMILY FOUNDATION’S LARRY LEVITT: “In order to truly protect people who are sick with pre-existing conditions you have to be willing to strictly regulate insurance companies and provide the kind of funding that would keep the insurance market stable. This bill from Senator Gardner falls well short of providing comprehensive protections for people with pre-existing conditions.”

ZELLINGER: “Gardner’s bill is not currently needed because the Affordable Care Act is still in place, however, one week after the election the U.S. Supreme Court will take up a case that will determine if the Affordable Care Act remains. Kyle, I asked Gardner’s campaign spokesman for time to talk with Gardner about his bill, I didn’t get that time.”

KYLE CLARK: “So, Marshall, because of the fact that Republicans are trying to take down the Affordable Care Act right after the election, they’re of course going to get asked on the campaign trail what is your plan to replace it with? And it would seem like Gardner’s plan is to say look at this three-line bill and assume that people don’t say well I saw on Next that that is actually horse excrement. Does that appear to be the plan? That he’s going to point to the three-line bill and say that’s my ACA fix.”

ZELLINGER: “Well I would ask specifically, according to Kaiser Family Foundation, it would just need like well it would need more context besides just a few lines, but it would need something like guaranteed issues, I think that’s the term that’s in the ACA, you don’t even need the ACA to cover for pre-existing conditions. You could craft a bill that even if ACA was gone you could have pre-existing coverage of everybody, but it’s just the nuance of the wording and right now the wording is not in that bill.”

CLARK: “Sure and a fair question for voters to ask, say if we take away this health care system what do we replace it with?”

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