These 32 Republicans voted to kill Obamacare. Now, they say they will protect pre-existing conditions. – Mother Jones



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Supporters of Obamacare gather in Fort Worth, Texas, in September.Max Faulkner / Zuma

In the run-up to the mid-term elections, Republicans increasingly claim to want to protect insurance coverage for people with pre-existing disorders – essentially a popular Obamacare clause that they have repeatedly attempted to repeal.

House Republicans have voted in favor of repealing, replacing or destroying the Affordable Care Act more than 50 times since 2011. According to recently released data from the Center for American Progress, a group of Liberal thinking, 67 Republican congressional members voted closely for at least one of those efforts to undermine Obamacare. Of these, 32 also said they would defend the protections provided by law for people with pre-existing conditions.

"Republicans seem to have received some kind of memo stating that they have to defend pre-existing conditions," says Ragland. If some had not yet received this message, they certainly received it yesterday when President Donald Trump tweeted that Republicans must support protections for pre-existing conditions.

Yet Trump has also repeatedly supported policies that would eliminate these protections:

Trump has spent most of 2017 defending Republican legislation to repeal Obamacare, bills that would have allowed insurance companies to make policies unaffordable for people with pre-existing conditions. When the House passed a bill last year that would have reduced the number of people with health insurance by 24 million, Trump summoned President Paul Ryan and other House leaders to the White House for a celebration. And earlier this year, the Trump administration signaled its support for the continuation of the legal action to invalidate Obamacare, particularly with respect to protections for people with pre-existing conditions.

CAP also released a list of what it calls "Dirty 3 Dozen": 36 outgoing members of the House who voted in favor of the complete repeal of Obamacare on several occasions. Although he promised to defend pre-existing conditions, Colorado's 6th district representative, Mike Coffman, voted in favor of repealing Obamacare eight times. It represents more than 346,000 people with pre-existing conditions, according to CAP. Coffman, Ragland's rating, voted against the American Health Care Act, a 2017 Obamacare replacement bill that would have weakened protections offered for pre-existing conditions. "Even though they voted no on the AHCA law, they can not help saying that they voted for the protection of people with pre-existing diseases," says Ragland.

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