The Washington Post fact checker took a look at Senator Tillis’ and Senate Republicans’ baseless claims that they will protect people with pre-existing conditions – and, in no surprise to anyone, found “their records show the opposite.”

Giving “four pinocchios all around,” the fact check blasts Senate Republicans like Tillis, saying, “Voters deserve straight answers when their health care is on the line, especially in the middle of a deadly pandemic.” 

Instead, what voters are getting shameless lies. Realizing that he’s stuck on the wrong side of one of voters’ top issues, Tillis has repeatedly lied about his record. In the most brazen instance, Tillis said, “for the life of me I can’t understand why anyone would be opposed to” protections for pre-existing conditions. Has Thom Tillis met Thom Tillis?

Even worse for Senator Tillis, the fact checker *again* panned Tillis’ sham bill on pre-existing condition protections, writing, “Experts say the Tillis proposal does not offer the same level of protection for preexisting conditions as the ACA, and they warn that millions of Americans could lose their health coverage if the ACA falls and the Protect Act is the only replacement.” Ouch.

Take it straight from the experts — Tillis’ sham bill is a “check-the-box effort” and a “meaningless promise,” “would do little to protect people with pre-existing conditions,” is “riddled with loopholes,” and is “political cover” and “really about protecting Senate Republicans” not patients.

“Thom Tillis is shamelessly lying about his record on protections for people with pre-existing conditions, but North Carolinians – and experts – aren’t buying it,” NCDP spokesperson Robert Howard said. “Tillis’ relentless attacks and baldfaced lies, even in the middle of a pandemic, are why voters will send Tillis home in November.”

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Washington Post: GOP senators in close races mislead on preexisting conditions
By Salvador Rizzo
July 15, 2020

Key Points:

• The president’s doublespeak — voicing support for these protections while asking the Supreme Court to strike them down — is spreading into some battleground Senate races this year.

• It’s a classic case of buyer beware: Look under the hood of what Daines, Gardner and McSally are selling, and you’ll find a car without an engine.

• What happens if the GOP lawsuit succeeds?

• Trump told The Washington Post days before his inauguration in 2017 that he was nearly done with his plan to replace the ACA. Three and a half years later, no replacement plan has emerged from the administration and Republicans in Congress hardly agree on what it would look like — or how to preserve the protections for preexisting health conditions.

• Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who is also running for reelection this year, has introduced a 24-page bill called the Protect Act that includes language guaranteeing coverage for preexisting conditions. Daines signed on as a co-sponsor on June 24, the day before the Justice Department filed its brief in the Supreme Court. McSally signed on in April 2019. Gardner is not listed as a co-sponsor.

• Experts say the Tillis proposal does not offer the same level of protection for preexisting conditions as the ACA, and they warn that millions of Americans could lose their health coverage if the ACA falls and the Protect Act is the only replacement.

• “Insurers before the Affordable Care Act had multiple and redundant ways that they could avoid people who had preexisting conditions,” said Karen Pollitz, a senior fellow at the Kaiser Family Foundation. The Protect Act prevents some of those practices, but it “leaves enough other loopholes that it would make it very possible and likely for insurers to be able to avoid paying benefits for the conditions they most worry about,” she said.

• “But it would leave many others on the cutting room floor,” she wrote, because insurers would be able to exclude coverage of benefits such as maternity care, mental health and substance-use treatment; set annual and lifetime limits on insurance payouts; and charge older patients more than younger patients at greater levels than the ACA allows, among other changes.

• It’s important to keep in mind that the Protect Act would not replace other parts of Obamacare, such as the online marketplaces and subsidies. Neither would it continue the ACA’s Medicaid expansion, which 37 states and D.C. have now adopted. That includes Arizona, Colorado and Montana.

• 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.

• Four Pinocchios all around.

Read the full fact check online here.