Craig Endorses Reinstating Obamacare Mandate
Jul 18, 2018Eagan, MN - Jason Lewis for Congress Campaign Manager Becky Alery released the following statement regarding health care policy in the campaaign for Minnesota’s Second District:
“With all these endorsements going around lately, there is one you may have missed. Angie Craig has endorsed reinstating the Obamacare mandate.
“It’s understandable that Craig would try to somehow salvage the Affordable Care Act (ACA) disaster as a result of the continued fallout of the ACA. After all, the law was supposed to lower premiums while offering more choices. Alas, we now know that health care premiums have skyrocketed to the point where families across the country have to choose between paying their mortgage or paying for government-mandated health insurance. Minnesota small businesses have stopped offering coverage in order to avoid the costs of increasingly expensive insurance. And shockingly, half of all counties in the U.S. will now have only one insurer to choose from in the individual market. The promise of ‘if you like your doctor you can keep it’ was simply not the truth.
“But it’s especially hypocritical for Angie Craig to feign outrage over health care costs under a scheme she did so much to exploit.
“In 2011, St. Jude Medical & their PAC, chaired by none other than Ms. Craig, steered over $750,000 to lobbyists, candidates and special interest groups in order to pass the ACA. During Craig’s time there, St. Jude Medical spent nearly five million to lobby to exempt her firm from the tax to pay for it. Naturally, in 2016 she went on to haul in more campaign dollars from her industry than any other House, Senate or even Presidential candidate in the nation.
“As if that weren’t enough, the Pioneer Press noted in 2016 that ‘Craig made between $1.8 and $6.9 million, including more than $1 million in…stock options’ for her handiwork. Now we find out from financial disclosures this year that Craig made another $4.8 million in compensation and stock options.
“Even her own party is disgusted about these hypothetical revelations, with a recent piece trashing Craig’s candidacy by saying, ‘Is it too much to ask, in 2018, that Democratic candidates haven’t literally made millions by working for a private medical giant and actively backed Republicans trying to take down President Obama and our Democratic agenda?’
“One thing is clear about Angie Craig. She does what’s good for Angie Craig.
“So now liberal Democrat candidates like Craig are once again hoping the American people will forget about the havoc Obamacare brought upon them by attempting to blame Republicans. In fact, they say that by finally freeing consumers from the ACA mandate to purchase unaffordable health plans, Congress is ‘sabotaging’ the law. But as a famous politician once said, ‘that dog won’t hunt.’ In fact, the Nancy Pelosi-Angie Craig premise is so fundamentally flawed that they have now resorted to predicting people will lose coverage who never got it in the first place.
“So, let’s take a look back at what really happened once Angie Craig went to work on the Affordable Care Act:
Flashback:
2010: Al Franken, Craig’s friend and supporter, cast the 60th vote to pass the ACA
2011: Craig worked to undermine the Affordable Care Act to benefit herself and her company financially
2014: Preferred One pulled out of MNsure exchange due to losing $139 million in the individual market
2015: Minnesota’s insurers proposed rates increases of up to 74% for Minnesotans on the individual marketplace – something Governor Dayton called outrageous
2016: BCBS pulled out of Minnesota’s individual insurance market after losing ‘more than $500 million in the individual segment over three years’
2016: Minnesota faced the fourth highest premium increases in the country at nearly 59%
2016: With premiums in Minnesota set to increase more than 50%, even Governor Dayton had the wherewithal to acknowledge the Affordable Care Act no longer affordable
2016: Craig was the top recipient of donations from the medical supply industry
2017: Minnesota Legislature rescued MNsure with $300 million bailout due to drastically increased costs under the ACA – again, before the individual mandate was repealed
2017: Minnesota applied for Section 1332 ‘reinsurance’ waiver allowing it to bypass ACA costliest requirements
2017: HHS Report showed that health insurance premiums doubled between 2013 & 2017 – long before the individual mandate was repealed
2018: Minnesota Dept. of Health reports that 116,000 more state residents lost their health plans, bringing the total to 349,000 and the state’s uninsured rate to 6.3%, the highest since 2001
2018: Labor Dept. announces expansion of ‘associated health plans’ for small firms relieving them of Obamacare mandates driving up costs. Between 2013 and 2016 almost 7000 small businesses stopped offering plans in Minnesota
“This is not a record Craig can run on, so she’s doing everything in her power to shift the blame from her questionable support of the disaster we’ve come to know as the ACA – as now her support for socialized medicine. Craig and her fellow Democrats have gone as far as to accuse Lewis of trying to ‘gut’ protections for pre-existing conditions, even though the reform bill he supports states that ‘nothing in this Act shall be construed as permitting insurers to limit access to health coverage for individuals with pre-existing conditions.’
“What’s even more notable, is that Craig spent a decade as a health care executive, yet has little, if nothing, to contribute in the way of solutions to fixing a health care system that she did so much to break. In fact, Craig continues her attempt to straddle the line within her own party by refusing to say whether she supports a single-payer Medicare for All system – something her recent opponent championed daily and something even her own 2nd District Democrats are wondering about.
“Is that because even the left-of-center Urban Institute says the scheme would leave about $17 trillion gap between the plan’s massive new payroll and income taxes and expenditures? Or because Craig is afraid her far-left antics being on display will show just how out of touch she is with Minnesotans?
(click here to watch video)
“While Congressman Jason Lewis is working towards actual reforms to benefit Minnesota families, it seems like Angie Craig is more intent on deflecting blame than using her time in the health care industry for solutions. Unfortunately for Craig, voters do not have as short of an attention span as she would like, and will see through her antics once again.”