Ron DeSantis's Pre-Existing Condition Votes Are So Bad His Campaign Is Lying About Them

Ron DeSantis’s votes to take away healthcare protections for pre-existing conditions are so toxic that his campaign is being forced to pretend they never happened.

Last year, DeSantis withheld support from the American Health Care Act — because he didn’t think it did enough to take away Floridians’ health care. DeSantis and the far right Freedom Caucus joined together to demand that insurers be allowed to charge more for people with pre-existing conditions. After extracting those cruel concessions — and making a bad bill even worse — DeSantis finally backed TrumpCare.

Now the DeSantis campaign is lying and saying those votes never happened. In a statement provided to the Tampa Bay Times, DeSantis spokesperson Stephen Lawson said:

“Ron DeSantis fully supports covering pre-existing conditions, which is what the bill he voted for ensures,” Lawson said. “Andrew Gillum’s attacks are a desperate attempt to distract from his disastrous single-payer healthcare proposal.”

The Tampa Bay Times immediately noted that Lawson was not telling the truth about Ron DeSantis’s record:

When a Republican congressman claimed, as Lawson did, that the AHCA protected people with pre-existing conditions, PolitiFact rated the claim “mostly false.” The AHCA did bar insurers from denying coverage to medically needy Americans, but not from charging sick patients substantially more than under the ACA.

As DeSantis continues to run away from his toxic record on health care, Democrats are keeping up the heat — and holding him accountable:

Tampa Bay Times: Florida Democrats hold events to bash Ron DeSantis on health care
Democrats are attacking Republicans on health care with increasing frequency, and in the age of Donald Trump, voters seem to be responding.

Florida Politics: St. Pete Dems put ‘Trump disciple’ Ron DeSantis on notice over health care
“The stakes could not be higher in this election,” Crist said. “To have someone who is running for Governor who doesn’t support covering people with pre-existing conditions, particularly in a state like Florida, is simply unconscionable.”