FACT CHECK: New Gardner Ad Lies on Health Care & His “Horse Excrement” Stunt Bill That *Still* Allows Insurance Companies to Deny Coverage
Gardner has voted at least 13 times to dismantle, defund, or repeal the ACA without a real replacement that would protect people with pre-existing conditions
Cancer survivor Laura Packard: “Your bill is a sham and you know it. I’m a stage four cancer survivor & you have voted again and again to strip health care from me and hundreds of thousands of Coloradans like me. Now you’re trying to cover up your own record.”
Denver, CO - Senator Cory Gardner is leaning on his “horse excrement” 117-word stunt health care bill in his latest ad to try to distract from his record of fighting his whole career to gut coverage for people with pre-existing conditions. Health care experts have shredded his stunt bill for “expressly allow[ing] insurance companies to deny” coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. Gardner has voted at least 13 times to dismantle, defund, or repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and supports the Republican lawsuit to overturn the ACA in the middle of a pandemic, which the U.S. Supreme Court is slated to hear the week after the election.
“Senator Cory Gardner has built his career trying to rip health care from hundreds of thousands of Coloradans and eliminate protections for millions of people with pre-existing conditions,” said Colorado Democratic Party spokesperson Eli Rosen. “Gardner’s latest ad based on his sham 117-word bill that allows insurance companies to deny people with pre-existing conditions is a disgusting and dishonest election-year stunt to deceive voters on his real record of voting to take away health care, and Coloradans won’t be fooled.”
Gardner’s “nonsense” stunt bill that allows insurance companies to deny people with pre-existing conditions has been slammed by health care experts and advocates in Colorado and across the country -- including the Kaiser Family Foundation, the Colorado Consumer Health Initiative, Protect Our Care, the former Secretary of Health and Human Services, the former CMS Administrator, University of Michigan health care law expert, Planned Parenthood, Third Way, and two separate independent fact-checkers.
Get the facts on Gardner’s healthcare record HERE or below:
CORY GARDNER OPPOSES PROTECTIONS FOR PRE-EXISTING CONDITIONS
- Gardner has voted at least 13 times to repeal, gut, or defund the Affordable Care Act without a real plan to protect the 2.4 million Coloradans with pre-existing conditions.
- Before he was elected to the Senate in 2014, Gardner was asked if health care reform should require coverage for people with pre-existing conditions. He responded, “no.”
- Gardner’s previous claims that he supports protecting people with pre-existing conditions earned him “four Pinocchios” from the Washington Post for misleading Coloradans.
- Even during this summer’s coronavirus pandemic, Gardner said he “do[es] not support universal health care.”
- Gardner believes the ACA is “unconstitutional” and supports the Trump Administration-backed lawsuit to overturn the health care law and its protections, which include coverage for prescription drugs and mental health care, Medicaid expansion, funding for rural hospitals and much more.
- When Congress failed to repeal the ACA three years ago, Gardner despaired that “donors are furious… we haven’t kept our promise” and helped lead efforts to pass the GOP tax scam, which sparked the current U.S. Supreme Court lawsuit to repeal the ACA.
- Over 400,000 Coloradans gained coverage under Medicaid expansion, and another half-million may rely on Medicaid to get through the coronavirus pandemic. But Gardner voted to repeal the expansion.
- Gardner’s U.S. Senate website even touts repealing the ACA, saying “Fixing our healthcare system will require repealing the Affordable Care Act”.
- Gardner has voted to confirm every single one of Trump and McConnell’s anti-healthcare judges, including vocal ACA opponent and Mitch McConnell’s “protégé,” Justin Walker.
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