FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 23, 2020
Contact: Ally Livingston, alivingston@jeanneshaheen.org

“Insurance companies used to jack up their rates and deny coverage. Corky Messner would let them do it again.”

Manchester, N.H. – In a new television ad, the Shaheen campaign contrasts Republican U.S. Senate candidate Corky Messner’s suggestion that pre-existing conditions do not exist with Jeanne Shaheen’s leadership protecting health care for Granite Staters. The ad specifically highlights Messner’s language from the first two Senate debates where he denies that more than half a million Granite Staters have pre-existing conditions. Messner would allow insurance companies to deny them coverage or raise their costs.

Messner, who supports repealing the Affordable Care Act (ACA), has repeatedly referred to people’s worries about losing pre-existing conditions protections as a “fear tactic” and claimed these conditions don’t exist in order to justify his attacks on the ACA. If Messner gets his way and the ACA is repealed, 572,000 Granite Staters would lose life-saving protections and 105,000 Granite Staters, including 57,000 on Medicaid Expansion, would immediately be kicked off their health care.

“In the middle of a pandemic, Corky Messner continues to suggest that Granite Staters with asthma, diabetes, and cancer don’t have pre-existing conditions to justify his support for gutting their access to health care,” said campaign manager Harrell Kirstein. “If Messner succeeds in repealing the Affordable Care Act, more than half a million Granite Staters will lose lifesaving protections that prevent insurance companies from denying health care coverage or jacking up their premiums, including those who recover from COVID-19. Jeanne Shaheen is fighting to save those protections and working across the aisle to lower health care costs and expand access to quality, affordable care. Granite Staters know they can count on Jeanne Shaheen to fight for their care.”

Watch the ad here.

VO: It’s incredible. Corky Messner just denied that people who have asthma or diabetes or another illness have a preexisting condition. Corky Messner doesn’t get it. More than a half million Granite Staters have pre-existing conditions. Insurance companies used to jack up their rates and deny coverage. Corky Messner would let them do it again. Jeanne Shaheen is fighting to protect healthcare coverage for people with pre-existing conditions. We can count on Jeanne Shaheen.

Jeanne Shaheen: I’m Jeanne Shaheen and I approve this message.

In the Senate, Jeanne Shaheen has fought to protect and expand access to quality, affordable health care, to lower prescription drug prices, and stop surprise medical bills. When the Trump administration and Senate Republicans tried to repeal the ACA, Jeanne Shaheen helped lead the bipartisan effort to block them, and she continues to fight against the Trump administration’s lawsuit to eliminate the ACA and the protections it provides for more than 572,000 Granite Staters with pre-existing conditions. She has also pushed for legislation to expand health care tax credits for the middle class and to lower insulin prices and has taken on the big drug companies to get cheaper generic drugs to market and allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices.

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