GOP senator trying to get rid of protections for preexisting conditions blames Democrats

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), one of the Republican Party’s key figures in attempting to repeal Obamacare, now claims that it’s Democrats who are obstructing efforts to protect people with preexisting conditions.

“Again and again, Democrats have refused to join Republicans in guaranteeing coverage for preexisting conditions,” Cornyn wrote on Monday.

His statement was written in response to a tweet from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who noted the two-year anniversary of the failed Republican attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Cornyn’s posturing was especially dishonest and ironic, considering his central role in the attack on health care.

Cornyn was the majority whip in the Senate while the Republican proposal was being debated and was in charge of securing votes for the repeal effort.

Cornyn “held private one-on-one meetings with a slew of wavering senators to try to persuade them to back the party’s controversial bill, which would overhaul one-sixth of the U.S. economy and could mean that more than 20 million fewer Americans have health insurance,” Politico noted in 2017, describing him as “Obamacare repeal’s top salesman.”

That legislation would have taken away protections for those with preexisting conditions, one of the consistently popular provisions of the law passed by President Barack Obama and Democrats.

Since then, Republicans in the Senate have opposed attempts to shore up coverage, including requiring short-term insurance plans to cover those with existing conditions.

Cornyn has been aligned on the side of less coverage, not more. He has stood by and not encouraged leaders in his home state of Texas to join in with the health care law’s Medicaid expansion. As a result, nearly 750,000 people there have had to live without health insurance.

Estimates are that over 15,600 people across the country have died because of the actions of Cornyn and his fellow anti-Obamacare Republicans.

Republicans lost control of the House in the 2018 midterms in large part thanks to their attacks on health care — led by Cornyn. Since then, the party under Trump has continued their fight against coverage, both in the courts and through policy.

Cornyn is trying to go after health care, and then blame Democrats and not his own party when the most vulnerable are hurt.

His statement is an attempt to ignore reality without taking ownership of his own actions.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.