Londrigan, Davis debate pre-existing condition coverage

Sept. 22--Democratic U.S. House candidate Betsy Dirksen Londrigan Friday accused incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis of acting to eliminate insurance protections for people with pre-existing medical conditions -- a charge Davis denied to reporters after participating in a "cancer community summit" in Springfield.

Londrigan, of Springfield, who is challenging Davis, of Taylorville, in the 13th Congressional District in the November election, held a news conference at her campaign headquarters and was joined by people with pre-existing conditions.

Hope Quarles, 23, of Springfield, had heart surgery at 19. With the prospect the Affordable Care Act will be gutted, she said, "I'm actually terrified for when I turn 26 and have to get my own health insurance."

Londrigan noted that Davis was a sponsor of a resolution recently to protect individuals with pre-existing conditions.

"You have to actually affirm something before you can reaffirm it," Londrigan said. "That nonbinding resolution bears zero legal weight. It protects zero of our neighbors. ... Just to be clear, Congressman Davis voted 11 times to eliminate the protections for people with pre-existing conditions. ... When you vote to repeal the ACA with no replacement, you are eliminating the protections for people with pre-existing conditions. Those are just the facts."

Davis said he has repeatedly pledged to constituents he would repeal and replace the ACA, also known as Obamacare. And he said the GOP House plan he backed in 2017 had "multiple layers of protections for pre-existing condition coverage."

He also said that some of the 11 votes cited by Londrigan were budget votes -- not direct votes on ACA. And spokeswoman for Davis later said some were also non-binding resolutions.

Davis spoke with reporters later Friday after participating in a Biden Cancer Initiative Summit at Memorial Medical Center's center for learning and innovation. The summit, one of hundreds being held across the country, brought together physicians and other experts to discuss cancer funding and treatment.

The Springfield event was hosted by Jon and Kimberly Wade of Jerseyville, who started the Kids Shouldn't Have Cancer Foundation in memory of their son Jonny who died in late 2015 at age 8 from brain cancer. Davis had known Jonny, and hosted the Wade family, including Jonny's twin brother Jacky, in Washington, D.C., when then-President Barack Obama delivered his State of the Union address in January 2016. It was during that speech that Obama announced a "moonshot" to seek a cure for cancer, and put then-Vice President Joe Biden in charge.

"We can play politics and we can stand up and have a press conference, and we can be loose with the facts as my opponent was today, or we can come here and work in a very bipartisan way with the experts who want to try and cure cancer," Davis said.

Even back in 2017, Democrats and Republicans made competing claims about whether the GOP House plan to replace the ACA maintained protections for people with pre-existing conditions. A factcheck.org look at the issue at the time found in part that under the GOP plan, states could apply for waivers to change the "essential benefits" the ACA now requires in plans and allow companies to set premiums based on health status for people who let coverage lapse for 63 days or more. But like the ACA, the plan would not allow companies to exclude coverage because of pre-existing conditions.

The bill also included aid for states to set up high-risk pools or other methods to help moderate premiums for people with pre-existing conditions. The report also said the GOP plan weakened "ACA protections against higher premiums and less-generous benefit plans."

Davis says he voted to lower costs and increase access to group and employer-sponsored health insurance.

Davis' campaign has taken on the allegation that he would be bad for those with pre-existing conditions. In an ad featuring his wife, Shannon, she says attacks on Davis are "ridiculous."

She is a 19-year colon cancer survivor and says her husband's "ultimate goal is just to make sure everybody has the health care that they want and the choices and the options that they choose."

Londrigan, whose son Jack nearly died after being bitten by a tick and contracting Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever in 2009, said the tipping point for her getting into the race was "seeing Congressman Davis celebrating on the White House lawn when they had voted to take health care away from millions of Americans."

Asked about the ad featuring Shannon Davis, Londrigan said: "I'm very thankful that she has had access to quality affordable insurance and health care and that she is safe and healthy. I am in this race to protect and make sure that other people have those same protections."

Davis said later he's working for protections for all people struck by illness.

"I don't think anybody who has been unfortunately given a disease they didn't ask for should ever have to worry about health care coverage in the future," Davis said.

He also said that under the ACA, premiums and deductibles can make treatment unaffordable.

Londrigan, asked about high costs, said she wants to "fix what's broken" with the ACA, including high drug prices. She also said she favors offering, on a trial basis to rural areas and small business, Medicare as a public option. She said U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, has proposed such a plan.

"I support fixing the ACA first and then looking at adding Medicare as a public option, and then let's figure out how to move forward from there," Londrigan said.

Bernard Schoenburg: [email protected], 788-1540, twitter.com/bschoenburg.

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