Cycle Trend: Senate Republicans Lost Fact Checks on Their False Health Care Claims

Republicans in the Senate have spent a decade attacking the health care law and voting to undermine protections for people with pre-existing conditions, a record that is now a massive political liability in their re-election campaigns. That’s exactly why they spent this entire election cycle trying to deceive voters about their toxic voting records against the Affordable Care Act and its protections.

GOP senators tried to mislead about their own positions and spread lies about Democrats. Fortunately for the voters, independent fact checks, experts, and news reports called these desperate Republicans out on their records and their blatantly false claims.

Here are the facts: Senate Republicans have been on a crusade to attack the Affordable Care Act and gut pre-existing conditions protections. They are all on record enabling or openly supporting their party’s anti-health care lawsuit that will be heard by the Supreme Court one week after the election and in fact rushed to confirm a nominee who has criticized rulings upholding the health care law, guaranteeing that these protections are more at risk than ever before. The GOP’s claims to support people with pre-existing conditions are nothing more than “empty promises” –– not a single Republican has yet to articulate a plan that would actually keep the ACA’s pre-existing conditions protections intact if the law is overturned. Health care has become an “albatross” for Republicans that “could help determine control of the Senate.”

Read more on how Republicans have been held accountable for their health care records:

Washington Post: Fact Checker: GOP senators in close races mislead on preexisting conditions

• “Voters deserve straight answers when their health care is on the line, especially in the middle of a deadly pandemic. Daines, Gardner and McSally have voted to end the Affordable Care Act. People with preexisting conditions would have been left exposed because of those votes; insurers could have denied coverage or jacked up prices for sick patients. The three senators’ comments about the GOP lawsuit are woefully vague, but they can all be interpreted as tacit support… Four Pinocchios all around.”

Washington Post (Opinion): Want to protect people with preexisting conditions? You need the full Affordable Care Act.

• Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation: “Republicans say they want to kill the ACA but keep its most popular provision. That can’t work.”

HuffPost: GOP Hoping Empty Health Care Rhetoric Can Save Their Senate Majority

• “That vow, not to support a plan that ‘pulls the rug out from under people,’ may sound familiar. It’s the same promise Republicans kept making in 2017 after Donald Trump became president and they were trying to write repeal legislation. But if you remember the promise, you may also remember how empty it was. The bills Republicans produced that year would have weakened protections for people with preexisting conditions while leaving many millions without insurance, as independent analysts, including the Congressional Budget Office, confirmed.”

NBC News: Republican senators in tough races obscure their position on pre-existing conditions

• “Republican senators facing tough re-election fights this fall are expressing support for insurance protections for people with pre-existing medical conditions, running ads at odds with their own recent votes and policy positions.”

CNN: GOP Senate candidates turn to their families to deflect Democratic attacks on health care

• “Health experts and fact checkers have said that Republicans have overstated their campaign trail claims to protect those pre-existing conditions… Republican candidates have had to contort themselves in 2020 in order to oppose Obamacare while supporting parts of it.”

PolitiFact: Arizona Sen. McSally makes health care pledge that contradicts past votes, policy positions

• “In her new TV ad, McSally claims she will “always protect those with preexisting conditions… McSally has not in the past or present taken actions that back up her statement. We rate it False.”

Arizona Republic: Fact checking the McSally-Kelly debate

• “The facts: McSally voted to repeal the ACA as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2015. Two years later, she voted to replace it with the American Health Care Act, which would’ve put older Americans and those with preexisting conditions at risk for higher premiums.”

Colorado Times Recorder: FACT CHECK: In Ad, Gardner Makes False Claim That He’s Trying to Protect People With Pre-Existing Conditions

• “Leading experts agree that Gardner’s election-year bill has gaping loopholes allowing insurance companies to deny coverage to anyone they don’t want to offer health insurance to, including people with pre-existing conditions.”

9News: Truth Test: Ad makes claims about Cory Gardner and voting history regarding preexisting conditions

• “Gardner has a voting history to weaken the Affordable Care Act, including coverage for those with preexisting conditions.”

PolitiFact: Gardner’s bill has as much to do with politics as preexisting conditions

• “The brevity of Gardner’s proposal makes it appear to be a fig leaf for a political problem rather than a means to guarantee protections for people with preexisting conditions… We rate this statement False.”

Colorado Times Recorder: Gardner Falsely Claims His Vote Protects People With Pre-existing Conditions

• “Gardner, whose office did not return a call seeking corrections or clarifications in his statement Wednesday, has insisted he’s in favor protecting people with pre-existing conditions. But Gardner has put no plan on the table at all, much less one that would accomplish this as well or better than Obamacare does.”

PolitiFact: Georgia Sen. Perdue’s record on preexisting conditions doesn’t match his promises

• “Perdue said that his policy is that ‘health insurance should always cover preexisting conditions. For anyone. Period.’… We rate this claim False.”

KCRG: i9 Fact Checker: Democratic ad’s attacks on Joni Ernst’s stance on pre-existing conditions are mostly true

• Senator Joni Ernst “very clearly supported the effort that includes repealing protections for pre-existing conditions.”

Cedar Rapids Gazette: Fact Checker: Attack ad accuses Ernst of making Iowans ‘squeal’

• Claim: “Sen. Ernst also voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act and gut protections for the 1.3 million Iowans with a preexisting condition… Grade: A”

Des Moines Register: Fact-checking Iowa’s US Senate debate: What did Joni Ernst and Theresa Greenfield get right?

• “Greenfield’s claim: Ernst voted ‘repeatedly to end the Affordable Care Act’ Our rating: True”

The Daily Iowan/PolitiFact: Fact check: final U.S. Senate debate between Joni Ernst and Theresa Greenfield

• “Ernst has voted for three legislative packages that would have repealed the Affordable Care Act in different ways.”

KSHB: Fact check: Bollier claims Marshall voted against health care protections

• “The legislation… said it would lower drug prices, encourage Medicaid expansion and protect people with pre-existing conditions… Rep. Marshall was one of the 179 lawmakers to vote no.”

Detroit Free Press (Opinion): Why Republicans lie about pre-existing conditions

• “No one has been more chronically deceitful about health care than GOP senatorial candidate John James… people want to know how he’ll guarantee affordable coverage for people with pre-existing conditions if Obamacare is repealed or struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court. James didn’t have an answer for that question in 2018… Two years later, he still hasn’t concocted a coherent response.”

Montana Free Press: Would he or wouldn’t he?

• “Under attack by Steve Bullock, Steve Daines insists he’ll protect patients with preexisting conditions — even as he works to overturn the law protecting them. Insurance experts say that doesn’t add up.”

Raleigh News & Observer: Fact check: Did Tillis work on behalf of drug and insurance companies? 

• “Did Tillis vote against coverage for preexisting conditions? Yes…”

PolitiFact: Cunningham says Tills voted to ‘take away’ coverage for pre-existing conditions 

• “It’s true that Tillis voted for a straight repeal of the Affordable Care Act, a move that likely would have left Americans with pre-existing conditions vulnerable…It’s correct about Tillis’ vote and the fact that other Republican plans fall short of matching the ACA’s protections for people with pre-existing conditions. We rate it Mostly True.”

WFMY: FACT CHECK: Senator Tillis did vote against protections for pre-existing conditions

• “Thom Tillis did vote three times to overturn the Affordable Care Act …Cal Cuningham’s ad is telling the truth when it says Senator Tillis voted against protections for pre-existing conditions.”

Washington Post: Fact Checker: Another clunker: John Cornyn’s ad on preexisting conditions

• “Cornyn has been silent on the lawsuit, but his Senate record speaks for itself: numerous votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act or replace it with weaker tea; a pair of proposals that could saddle sick patients with higher, and possibly prohibitive, costs; and voting against a measure just last month that would have barred the Justice Department from arguing to strike down the entire health-care law in court. Cornyn earns Four Pinocchios.”

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