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NEW: Hawley Can’t Defend Toxic Pre-Existing Conditions Lawsuit

Josh Hawley’s lawsuit to end pre-existing conditions coverage has become such a significant liability to his campaign that he’s using his limited resources trying to defend it on TV. The problem is the facts don’t support Hawley’s empty rhetoric and Missourians know it.

Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spokesman David Bergstein released the following statement: “Dishonest, deceitful, self-serving — there are many words to describe Josh Hawley’s big lie about his lawsuit to end coverage for pre-existing conditions. If Hawley was serious about what he says in this ad he’d end his lawsuit, but the only thing he really cares about is himself.”

KOMU 8: TARGET 8 Fact Check: Ad targets Hawley on pre-existing insurance claims

  • Claim: Josh Hawley is ripping away protections for people with pre-existing conditions. He filed a lawsuit to allow insurance companies to deny care.
  • Verdict: True. By trying to strike down the Affordable Care Act, Josh Hawley would be allowing insurance companies to deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions.

Politifact Missouri: McCaskill’s right: Hawley’s lawsuit would end Affordable Care Act protections

  • McCaskill’s claims about the lawsuit have a ring of truth — Hawley’s lawsuit would repeal the entire health care act and hence all of its consumer protections, including those for the doughnut hole.
  • The Republican Congress has not passed any substitute health care plan to replace the act, so it is unclear if Hawley and his fellow Republican attorneys general would have a new system in place with consumer protections like those under the Affordable Care Act.

 St. Louis Post-Dispatch Editorial: Mr. Hawley, get Missouri out of this lawsuit.

  • Some background: In February, 20 states, including Missouri, sued the federal government to kill the 2010 law that expanded medical coverage to millions of uninsured Americans. By writing out of the 2017 tax bill the law’s penalty provision for those who fail to buy insurance, the Republican-led Congress rendered the entire law unconstitutional, the lawsuit argues.
  • If that happens, the insurance industry would revert to the hellscape it was for many families before Obamacare, when insurers routinely charged untenable rates to people with pre-existing conditions, or refused to cover them at all. Study after study shows higher mortality rates for people without health insurance. Whatever Hawley and his fellow plaintiffs tell the public and themselves about their motives for tearing down this law, they’re tearing down a protection that many of their constituents literally can’t live without.
  • The irony of the suit is that many of its plaintiff-states, including Missouri, have above-average rates of adults with pre-existing conditions, according to a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation. About 27 percent of adult Americans under 65 have health conditions “that would likely leave them uninsurable” without the ACA’s protections, the study found. In Missouri, that rate is 30 percent.

HuffPost: GOP Senate Candidates Are Scrambling To Rewrite Their Record On Pre-Existing Conditions

  • Hawley, who is currently Missouri’s attorney general, is one of the 20 state officials who has signed onto a new lawsuit seeking to eliminate the Affordable Care Act’s guarantee of coverage, which they argue is unconstitutional. Hawley is also a longtime supporter of Congress repealing the law outright.
  • Hawley would have Missourians believe there is nothing contradictory in his rhetoric and action ― he simply wants to get rid of “Obamacare,” not the law’s promise of insurance for anybody regardless of pre-existing conditions.
  • In reality, Hawley and other Republicans have no concrete or well-developed plan for replacing the law with something that would provide the same kind of access. If either the lawsuit he supports or repeal legislation were successful, people with cancer, diabetes and a variety of other chronic conditions would have a much tougher time getting comprehensive coverage. The GOP, including Hawley, is now talking up a Senate bill experts have said wouldn’t solve the problem.

Politico: Republicans ‘duck and cover’ on pre-existing conditions

  • Few Republicans in competitive races are eager to make that case. Some are awkwardly trying to embrace Obamacare’s protections while still railing against the law. That’s proven an especially difficult tightrope walk for McCaskill’s challenger, Josh Hawley, and West Virginia Senate candidate Patrick Morrisey, who also is among the attorneys general backing the Obamacare lawsuit.
  • “The reality is that Josh Hawley has always said he wants people with pre-existing conditions to be covered,” his campaign said in response to an August ad highlighting his support of the lawsuit. “On the other hand, Sen. McCaskill is responsible for the current Obamacare mess.”

 

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