ICYMI: Fact Check Confirms Tillis Voted Against Protections for Pre-Existing Conditions

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

August 3, 2020

ICYMI: Fact Check Confirms Tillis Voted Against Protections for Pre-Existing Conditions

Tillis Should Speak Out Against Pending Supreme Court Case That Could Wipe Out Protections

Raleigh, N.C. - Last week, fact checkers yet again confirmed that Senator Thom Tillis repeatedly voted against protections for North Carolinians with pre-existing conditions, citing three votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2017. Tillis has claimed to support other legislation for pre-existing conditions, but a previous fact check found his proposal “"falls short” and is “riddled with loopholes that would continue to permit discriminatory rating practices” allowing insurance companies to charge people with pre-existing conditions more.

The ACA is back before the Supreme Court later this year, and the Trump administration has asked the court to strike the law down in its entirety. If the ACA is struck down, an estimated 607,000 North Carolinians would lose coverage, an estimate that has increased by 100,000 since the start of the pandemic. More than 1.7 million non-elderly North Carolinians, 28 percent of the state, have a pre-existing condition that would allow insurance companies to deny them coverage if the ACA is struck down.

“If Thom Tillis wants to protect pre-existing conditions, he should drop his sham proposal and speak out forcefully against the Trump administration’s latest attempt to gut the ACA at the Supreme Court,” said Piedmont Rising Executive Director Casey Wilkinson. “Nearly two million North Carolinians with pre-existing conditions would find their health care suddenly at risk if this lawsuit succeeds, and what’s worse, they could lose their care in the midst of a global pandemic. During this on-going public health emergency, Tillis should be doing everything he can to lower costs and protect access to care.”

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