Capito wavered on those repeal votes last year, ultimately supporting the final GOP bill, but Baldwin said she thought Capito might support this new resolution because mental health coverage, which short-term plans typically lack, is critical for treating the opioid addiction epidemic that has hit states like West Virginia hard.
Baldwin said she hoped to continue reaching out to potential Republican supporters, including Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, who had joined Collins in voting no on Obamacare repeal.
The actual enthusiasm of those senators for Baldwin’s measure remains to be seen. Republicans, on the whole, have been trying to avoid talking about health care this election season. When they can’t avoid the subject, they have professed their own support for protections for pre-existing conditions, despite their record of supporting legislation that would undermine those protections.
Democrats can read the same polls as Republicans and, not surprisingly, they are raising the issue at every chance they get. That’s especially true for senators, like Baldwin, who ar up for re-election in politically contested states that supported Trump in the 2016 presidential election.
But Baldwin also has a personal connection to the issue. She has frequently described having a childhood illness that left her with a pre-existing condition and uninsurable for many years. “Despite my full recovery, which is irrelevant in actuary world, I was considered a child with a preexisting condition,” Baldwin told Vox this spring.
And whether or not her bill can get past the Senate, let alone through the House and then win over the president, Baldwin said on Tuesday that it was important to put down a marker on behalf of the Affordable Care Act’s consumer protections ― and to remind voters that, without those protections in place, people could struggle to get insurance simply because they’ve had medical problems, just as they did before the Affordable Care Act became law.
“I can’t tell you the letters I used to get then,” said Baldwin, who was a House member at the time. She went on to recount a story about a man who got cancer, only to discover that his insurance had limits on coverage.
The man and his wife took out loans and maxed out credit cards to pay for the chemotherapy, which was ultimately unsuccessful and left the wife ruined financially, Baldwin said.
“They went bankrupt, they lost their house, they lost everything, and sadly, in that case, the dad didn’t survive,” Baldwin said. “How many families should undergo things like that?”
Article source: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/baldwin-trump-pre-existing-junk_us_5b85f8ade4b0cf7b0030086f