In his second media exchange on healthcare in two weeks, congressional candidate Gabe Evans repeated his belief that the Affordable Care Act doesn’t work and should be replaced.
“If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t matter how good it looks on paper, we need to go back to the drawing board and figure out something that actually works, said Evans. “And so that’s where I think we are with the Affordable Care Act.”
Evans’ answer, which he gave during his interview with Denver 7 reporter Brandon Richard, came after he listed several critiques of the ACA, then said, “Things need to be addressed and tweaked in the ACA.” When Richard pressed him on whether that meant he didn’t favor full repeal, Evans said it’s time to “go back to the drawing board and figure out something that actually works.” He concluded by again using the words “adjust” and “tweak,” despite having just said that the ACA doesn’t work and that policymakers need to start over.
The definition of the saying ‘go back to the drawing board’ is that “one’s effort has failed, and one must start all over again.”
Evans also endorsed repealing the ACA last week during the CBS News debate. In a story about the debate, headlined “Evans expresses support for repealing ACA in 8th District debate,” Axios noted that he said, “We have to go back to making sure we are making health care actually affordable.”
Both of these statements are a change from earlier this year when Evans refused to answer reporters’ direct questions on whether he’d support repealing Obamacare. During a GOP primary debate in June, when he was asked directly if he supported “Donald Trump’s call to terminate the Affordable Care Act,” Evans’ extended non-answer led a healthcare expert to conclude that he indeed wants to repeal the ACA.
Over 21,000 Coloradans in the 8th Congressional District are in enrolled in ACA marketplace plans this year, according to data from the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Watch Evans’ entire interview with Denver7’s Richard here. The transcript of their full discussion on the Affordable Care Act follows:
TRANSCRIPT
Evans: “Here in Colorado, we’ve seen double-digit premium increases for folks just trying to get health insurance. And we’ve seen multiple health insurers leave the marketplace in Colorado as a result of overregulation and a lot of government overreach into this space. So I support making care actually available and affordable again. And so I think there’s things that definitely need to be addressed and tweaked in the Affordable Care Act so that we can get back to available and affordable care for families like mine that have medical situations.”
Richard: “So it sounds like you would not be in favor of repealing it, but just making some changes?”
Evans: “I want healthcare to be available and affordable to everyone. When I was overseas in the Middle East flying helicopters, we had a simple saying: ‘Does it work? Let’s do it.’ If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t matter how good it looks on paper, we need to go back to the drawing board and figure out something that actually works. And so that’s where I think we are with the Affordable Care Act. We need to take a long, hard look at it and figure out how can we adjust, modify, tweak and improve a lot of the policy processes in there to actually make healthcare available, accessible and affordable to everyone that needs it.”
