The Truth About Pre-Existing Conditions

A full year after Republicans pulled the Graham-Cassidy-Heller health care bill from the Senate floor, because their disastrous bill could not get the necessary votes to allow them to gut protections for pre-existing conditions and strip health care from millions of Americans, Republicans still aren't telling the truth about protecting people who have pre-existing conditions.

Despite the fact that the GOP candidates on the campaign trail today either supported Graham-Cassidy-Heller or previous iterations of it, Republicans are now singing a very different tune. They want voters to forget their legislative records and instead believe their slick campaign ads.

In the Washington Post, Paul Waldman criticized the hypocrisy of the GOP’s current strategy to try to cover up their record pre-existing conditions, noting that while “you see all kinds of dishonesty in campaigns… you usually don’t see them claiming to be the savior of the very thing they’re trying to destroy.” 

There is a stark contrast between what candidates from Minnesota say about protecting people with pre-existing conditions and what they want to do about it. 

Karin Housley

Karin Housely is running for U.S. Senate against lifelong champion for women, reproductive rights, and health care Tina Smith. 

What Karin Housley Says: “We can start by… making sure insurance companies cannot deny people for having a pre-existing condition.”

What Karin Housley Does: She falsely claimed that the Affordable Care Act “decimated health insurance” in Minnesota and supports ACA repeal when, in reality, the most recent repeal bill would have threatened coverage for hundreds of thousands of Minnesotans and undermined protections for people with pre-existing conditions.

Jeff Johnson

Jeff Johnson is running for Minnesota Governor against outspoken advocate for Planned Parenthood and defender of health care access Tim Walz.

What Jeff Johnson Says: “I see a much brighter future for Minnesota where we lower health care costs with competition and choice” and “cover pre-existing conditions.”

What Jeff Johnson Does: Johnson supports repealing the Affordable Care Act and advocates reinstituting failed policies like high-risk pools, which will strip protections from people with pre-existing conditions.

Erik Paulsen (MN-03)

Erik Paulsen is running for re-election to the U.S. House of Representatives in Minnesota's 3rd District against Dean Phillips, dedicated advocate reproductive rights and affordable health care access.

What Erik Paulsen Says: “I support… expand[ing] access to health care by protecting patients with pre-existing conditions.”

What Erik Paulsen Does: Paulsen voted to repeal the ACA, which would have gutted Medicaid, stripped pre-existing conditions protections and caused over 250,000 Minnesotans to lose health care, and lied to the public about the bill’s impact.

What's At Stake for Minnesotans

• In Minnesota, more than 2 million individuals or 51% of the non-elderly population has a pre-existing condition.
• More than 1.1 million women in Minnesota have pre-existing conditions, many of whom could be charged more or denied coverage for individual insurance if the ACA’s protections are invalidated by the Court or repealed by Congress. 
• A repeal of the ACA would have caused 23,000 Minnesotans to lose access to essential health care like birth control, cancer screenings, and STD testing and treatment at Planned Parenthood.