Here & Now

On the Issues: Health Care

Frederica Freyberg:
From jobs to health care, specifically, what the candidates are saying about providing insurance coverage to those with pre-existing conditions.

Scott Walker:
We can protect people with pre-existing conditions in the state without protecting the failure that is Obamacare. Look, my wife who’s here tonight is a type 1 diabetic. My mom who’s sitting right next to her is a cancer survivor. My brother has a heart condition. Like a lot of you at home watching, when we talk about covering pre-existing conditions for our families, it’s very personal. In Wisconsin, everyone living with pre-existing conditions is covered right now and as long as I’m governor, it will always be covered in the state of Wisconsin.

Tony Evers:
We have a governor saying, Oh, my gosh. I’m concerned about making sure that pre-existing conditions don’t prevent people from getting good health care. And that’s important to me. I’m a cancer survivor. So I get that issue. He’s making that claim at the same time, he’s in federal court with a bunch of other Republican governors saying, “My gosh. We have to get rid of this whole thing. So, I have asked him, point blank, if you believe in making sure that pre-existing conditions aren’t an issue, drop that lawsuit. That’s what you should be doing.” And it’s been very — the response has been crickets, frankly. We have heard nothing from him on that.

Frederica Freyberg:
So, this issue rises to the top. People are talking about it a lot in this race and in, of course, the U.S. Senate race. Tony Evers there is referring to a lawsuit that Wisconsin has taken the lead on to repeal the Affordable Care Act which includes, of course, the provisions for pre-existing conditions. So, therein is that vexing question, if you want to cover pre-existing conditions, why is the state of Wisconsin suing to overturn Obamacare?

Shawn Johnson:
And that set this back and forth up between Walker and Evers, and really the reason that they’re talking about it so much, or Democrats are talking about it so much is that the Affordable Care Act polls well now and the coverage for pre-existing conditions polls especially well. That is their best issue in this race. So they are highlighting efforts, Republican efforts to get rid of that law. The governor’s talking about a state law that he supports. Or a state bill that he supports that would protect pre-existing conditions in Wisconsin. However, that would not be exactly apples to apples, because it would allow for a lifetime cap on insurance coverage. So, like a million dollars could be a cap for a cancer patient who could run out of that pretty quickly.

Frederica Freyberg:
And Laurel, there was a measure that was in the legislature.

Laurel White:
That’s right. That’s the bill that Shawn was talking about. And I think what’s really interesting here is that both of the candidates on, you know, the face level, say I support pre-existing conditions or coverage for them.
But what’s different there is the governor supports the state-backed plan that includes things like high risk pools, and has that lifetime limit for patients. Where Tony Evers supports the ACA, a type of pre-existing condition coverage which is looped in with all of these other health care policies. So, they both support it but it’s actually quite different.

Frederica Freyberg:
Yes, because experts have told us that the state version or fix to the coverage of these conditions is not nearly clearly as robust as what’s in current federal law under the ACA.

Shawn Johnson:
Right.