In a tight race for Ohio's first congressional district, the talk has turned to health care. Democrat Aftab Pureval is trying to unseat incumbent Republican Steve Chabot. He recently released an ad taking on Chabot's health care record.
"If they take away the preexisting condition protections," a mother told Pureval in the ad. "You're punishing a childhood cancer survivor for surviving cancer. That's pretty disgusting."
"Chabot's vote to take health care away from 35,000 people in our district, his vote to increase premiums on people over 50, he's done nothing to lower the cost of prescription drugs. I think we can do better," Pureval responded.
Let's home in on this claim that Steve Chabot voted to take away health care coverage protections for people with preexisting conditions. He did. But he's always talked about the importance of offering a replacement program that would include that protection.
Chabot's team defends his votes for bills that stripped protections without a backup this way: They say the bills were intended to send a message to then-President Obama and didn't actually have a chance of passing.
So Steve Chabot has talked about creating a provision to protect people with preexisting conditions should the Affordable Care Act ever be repealed. But he's still voted to take away those protections without replacements in place or planned.
