GOP Senate candidate struggling with conflict over medical file – again



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Many Republicans have made extremely dishonest statements about health care in recent weeks. But few have done so with the fullness of Martha McSally, Republican candidate in the Arizona Senate.

She did it in her commercials. She did it in televised debates. And now, she participates in meetings with voters.

A new video of American bridge, a Liberal political action committee, captured McSally speaking with participants – including one who asked about McSally's vote in 2017 to remove protections for people with pre-existing conditions.

"I did not do it," says McSally. "It's a lie, I voted to protect them."

McSally, of course, is the one who does not tell the truth.

McSally is currently a member of the United States House of Representatives. And in 2017, she voted in favor of the American Health Care Act, the GOP bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

This bill would have allowed states to request waivers so that insurers can charge higher premiums to people with pre-existing illnesses whose coverage has lapsed.

the waivers would also have allowed insurers to offer plans without maternity care, Mental Health, a prescription coverage and seven other benefits deemed essential by the ACA – make the coverage unattractive or downright unworkable for people with serious medical conditions.

The bill offered states an additional sum to help take care of people who could not get insurance on their own. In addition, there was wording that insurers could not discriminate against people with pre-existing medical conditions. But as countless independent experts The language had no significant political impact and the money would not have been enough to take care of everyone who needed it.

The rest of the audio is not so clear, but McSally seems to be saying how many people in Arizona still do not have affordable insurance, even with the ACA in place. And that is absolutely true.

McSally could have gone further by saying that some people are paying more for their coverage now because their premiums have gone up and they are not eligible for the ACA tax credits. McSally could have even mentioned that the private insurance markets in Arizona were among the most volatile in the country and it seemed at one point that some parts of the state might have no carriers.

But the bill repealing the bill backed by McSally would have left even more people fighting for insurance. Indeed, the proposal would have reallocated these tax credits to private insurance and would have significantly reduced funding for Medicaid.

A total of 23 million fewer people would be covered if this bill became law, according to an estimate by the Congressional Budget Office.

There are reasons that a conservative like McSally could always think that the bill made sense. Public spending – and the deficit – would have been lower. The government would not have established as many rules on how health insurance works.

But polls show that protections for pre-existing conditions, like many elements of the ACA, are popular – and that even if voters do not like "Obamacare," they do not want to be safe. get rid of it either. They prefer to make it better.

This feeling is without a doubt one of the main reasons why GOP candidates such as McSally have problems, even if it is relatively popular and presents itself in a traditionally Republican state. His opponent, Democratic Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, attacked McSally several times in the 2017 vote – and, as McSally recently admitted in a radio interview, "I get kicked on my ass".

And so rather than defend his vote, McSally is trying to mislead voters about what this vote meant. It's the same thing happening across the country, in contests like this one, and it probably will not stop until after polling day.

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