Kelly Loeffler tries to save her Senate seat by lying about health care

Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) on Tuesday falsely accused her opponent, Raphael Warnock, of supporting “socialized medicine” because he backs a “public option” to give people more insurance coverage options.

“.@ReverendWarnock supports socialized medicine including the public option. He wants the government to run healthcare & take away your private insurance,” Loeffler tweeted on Tuesday. “I will ALWAYS put patients first — and I will NEVER support putting DC in charge of your healthcare.”

The statement suggests that Loeffler does not understand what a “public option” means or is knowingly misleading her constituents on the matter.

Last month, PolitiFact and Kaiser Health News published a fact-check after Donald Trump made a similar “pants on fire” claim about Joe Biden’s support for the public option.

Under Biden’s plan to expand the existing Affordable Care Act, the groups note, the “public option would be a health insurance plan run by the federal government that would be offered alongside other private health insurance plans on the insurance marketplace.” Experts said it was hardly socialism.

“Socialized medicine means that the government runs hospitals and employs doctors, and that is not part of Biden’s plan,” Larry Levitt, Kaiser Family Foundation executive vice president for health policy, told fact-checkers.

The federal government is, of course, already “in charge” of healthcare for millions of Americans who receive coverage through Medicare, the military, and through the Veterans Administration — benefits Loeffler has claimed to support.

This is also hardly the first time Loeffler has falsely accused Warnock, the senior pastor at the Atlanta church where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once preached, of being a “socialist.” She claimed on Monday if that Democrats win the Georgia Senate races, “they will transform America into a socialist nation” and that the “radical” Warnock “will champion their agenda.”

A Loeffler spokesperson did not immediately respond to an inquiry for this story.

In addition to opposing the public option, Loeffler has pushed to get rid of the entire Affordable Care Act.

Last month, she voted against a resolution opposing “efforts of the Department of Justice to advocate courts to strike down” the law, commonly known as Obamacare.

Days later, she joined Republican Gov. Brian Kemp — the man who appointed her to a vacant Senate seat last December — to announce a plan to opt out of the federal health insurance exchange. Advocates say the move could take coverage away from 60,000 Georgians.

Loeffler, who came in second in the November election, will face Warnock in a January runoff. On Fox News Monday night, she repeatedly claimed that she would win because Georgia is a “red state,” even though Democrat Biden carried it in the Nov. 3 election by more than 10,000 votes.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.