In Governor’s Race, Health Care Emerges as a Key Theme

Oct. 15--Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ned Lamont rolled out a plan Monday to cap hospital facility fees, lower prescription drug costs and vigorously defend the Affordable Care Act.

But there's one phrase missing from Lamont's nine-page health care proposal: single payer. Unlike other Democrats running for governor this year, including Gavin Newsome in California, Andrew Gillum in Florida and Jared Polis in Colorado, Lamont is not proposing an expensive new program to provide health insurance to all state residents.

Lamont has called universal health care "an aspirational goal, given where we are in our fiscal situation right now."

Yet like other Democrats, Lamont and his running mate Susan Bysiewicz are promising to resist efforts by Republicans to chip away at the Affordable Care Act, especially the law's mandate that insurers cover people with pre-existing medical conditions.

"Rolling back the protections under Obamacare would take us in the wrong direction," Lamont said at a campaign stop at a Hartford health clinic earlier this month.

Republicans in Washington have been trying for years to repeal former President Barack Obama's health care overhaul, but their efforts have always fallen short. This year, the GOP fight against the Affordable Care Act is being led by state-level leaders, as a group of 18 GOP attorneys general filed a lawsuit arguing the ACA is unconstitutional, singling out pre-existing condition provision.

Bysiewicz and Lamont say the other major party gubernatorial candidate -- Republican Bob Stefanowski -- and his running mate, Joe Markley, are seeking to undermine the Affordable Care Act in Connecticut.

The state legislature has codified 10 benefits covered under Obamacare into state law, so even if Congress repeals the act, Connecticut residents would still be covered by its provisions. (Markley, a state senator, voted against the bill.)

But Democrats say the closeness of the state Senate could make Markley the tie-breaking vote in a state effort to repeal coverage for those benefits. "There is a very stark difference between our team's approach and their team's approach," Bysiewicz said recently. "The other team wants to get rid of Obamacare ... we want to keep it and expand it."

Kendall Marr, a spokesman for Stefanowski, disputed that characterization. "The Lamont team continues to show a blatant disregard for the facts," Marr said Monday. "They are well away that Bob has committed to protecting coverage for those with pre-existing conditions but they are continuing to play this game where they misrepresent Bob's position on the issues in an attempt mislead voters."

Since Obamacare became law, health care costs have climbed nearly 50 percent, Marr said. Stefanowski is proposing a legislative review of the coverage mandates on insurers to determine whether there are benefits to such directives. And he is calling for efforts to improve competition in the insurance market, a strategy he says would also reduce costs.

The debate over health care in 2018 is markedly different from the battle over Obamacare in 2010, when critics warned of "death panels."

"A couple of [election] cycles ago ... when people didn't really know what the Affordable Care Act was about," said state Comptroller Kevin Lembo.

Talk of eliminating protections for patients with pre-existing conditions makes many people nervous, Lembo said.

William Tong, a Democrat running for state attorney general, says he hears concerns about Obamacare on the campaign trail. Specifically, voters are worried about the reproductive health provisions in the law, the cost of prescription drugs and the potential elimination of the pre-existing condition coverage mandate.

"That's a very recognizable feature of the Affordable Care Act," Tong said. "People are worried about their ability to procure insurance."

___

(c)2018 The Hartford Courant (Hartford, Conn.)

Visit The Hartford Courant (Hartford, Conn.) at www.courant.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.