Cory Gardner Wants to Eliminate Obamacare, Insists GOP Solutions Will Cover Preexisting Conditions

At a Colorado Chamber of Commerce luncheon last week, Sen. Gardner (R-CO) once again confirmed his desire to repeal Obamacare, without offering a plan to protect people with preexisting conditions from losing their insurance coverage.

Asked by moderator Ed Sealover if the unspecified Republican replacement plan would keep any of the popular features of Obamacare, Gardner repeated his claim that the Republican solution would preserve those elements.

Gardner has been claiming for months that a Republican plan would continue to protect people with preexisting conditions. He continues to assert this despite voting repeatedly to eliminate coverage for preexisting conditions without offering any viable replacement.

SEALOVER: Should any of the provisions of the ACA stay in place in your mind?

GARDNER: Yes. We’ve already talked about [allowing young adults to remain on their parents’ insurance until] age 26. We need to make sure we are protecting and providing coverage for people with preexisting conditions. The solutions we bring will provide coverage for people with preexisting conditions.

But what I think is now widely recognized is that both sides of the aisle now want to eliminate the Affordable Care Act. That’s why you see it in Medicare For All and that’s why you see it in other solutions for replacement. We can provide people with preexisting conditions with affordable coverage. We ought to pursue things like we’ve helped with in Colorado that will now reduce the cost of insurance between $7-8k for a family of four.

Gardner is referring to the reinsurance waiver passed by the legislature last year and approved by the federal government in late July. He has repeatedly taken credit for its success in reducing health insurance premiums on the individual health insurance market, despite his multiple votes to repeal Obamacare, which would have eliminated the waiver program entirely.

Gardner also opposed another program designed to help insurance companies cover expensive patients. He and Sen. Rubio stripped funding from a risk corridor provision of Obamacare.