U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill (D- Missouri) spoke to supporters at her Ferguson campaign office on Friday August 17 about the importance of continuing health insurance coverage for persons with pre-existing conditions.
Her Republican challenger in November, Josh Hawley, joined 19 other state attorneys general in suing to destroy that health protection as the Trump administration continues its attacks to dismantle the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) passed during the Obama administration. The ACA forbids health insurance companies from refusing to cover people because they have a pre-existing condition – that is, a health problem they had before the date that new health coverage starts.
McCaskill voted for the ACA – and voted against the Republican attempt to repeal it.
McCaskill said Hawley made a choice six months ago to get rid of all the ACA’s protections: “every one of the consumer protections, every single bit of support that someone gets to get insurance on the exchanges – all of it gone.”
However, Hawley claims to support coverage of pre-existing conditions in his campaign against McCaskill.
“Then he has the nerve to say, ‘Well, I support preexisting conditions,’” McCaskill said. “Really? Then withdraw from the lawsuit tomorrow. Take your name off the lawsuit and quit pursuing through the courts an agenda that members of your own party would not vote for in Congress.”
McCaskill said there are a number of important consumer protections in the ACA, “everything from you being on your parent’s policy until you are 26, to protection for preexisting conditions, to the idea that you don’t get to be charged more money just because you are a woman. I know that we have the babies, but you men had something to do with it, so it’s just not fair that women pay more than men just because they’re women. We also put in the bill that insurance companies can only spend 20 cents of every dollar on CEO salaries and hiring more people to figure out how to deny your claim.”
There are also protections in the ACA against lifetime caps on medical coverage of traumatic illness or injury, and financial assistance from the federal government for persons with certain lower incomes to get and maintain insurance coverage.
“All of these are things that are still in the law,” McCaskill said.
Afterward the public event, when speaking to reporters, she talked about debating Hawley between now and November – and said there will be plenty of debates. Hawley garnered headlines challenging her to a debate before the August 7 primary, though they both had primary challengers, albeit longshot challengers, and neither had secured their party’s nomination.
Clearly, McCaskill is spoiling to debate Hawley.
“This is somebody who claims he’s on the side of workers and won’t even say if he is for the minimum wage increase,” she said. “He is getting to avoid tough questions; he’s getting to avoid questions that Missourians really want to talk about, debating the debates.”
