September 15, 2020 01:56 PM UTC

Cory Gardner's Latest Ad Is So Much Worse Than It Looks

• 9 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE: Gardner is getting crushed by national media outlets who clearly see the contradictions:

Reminiscent of his 2014 Senate campaign, when he featured his own claims that the ACA had doubled his own family’s premiums in TV ads (but also went to great lengths not to disclose the details of his original coverage plan).

— Eli Stokols (@EliStokols) September 15, 2020

And as NBC News reports:

Gardner campaign spokesman Meghan Graf didn’t respond when asked if Gardner still favors ACA repeal, or why his bill doesn’t include the guaranteed issue provision. She wouldn’t say whether Gardner supports a lawsuit backed by the Trump administration to invalidate the ACA.

Brutal.
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People like my mother who battle chronic diseases are heroes. I authored the bill to guarantee coverage to people with pre-existing conditions—no matter what happens to Obamacare—because some things matter more than politics. pic.twitter.com/uosfsAPvbc

— Cory Gardner (@CoryGardner) September 15, 2020

This morning, embattled GOP incumbent Sen. Cory Gardner released a new TV spot you can watch above. The ad features Sen. Gardner emoting very strongly over his mother’s cancer diagnosis, and his mother is present in the ad to talk favorably about Gardner’s recent 117-word bill meant to redeem a decade of votes by Gardner to repeal the Affordable Care Act without any protections for patients with pre-existing conditions–a bill panned as “horse excrement,” with none of the details in the ACA that actually protect patients, and loopholes big enough to drive an ambulance through. Gardner promises with what look a lot like tears in his eyes to protect people with pre-existing conditions “no matter what happens to Obamacare.”

If you are a Colorado voter not aware of Sen. Cory Gardner’s literally dozens of votes in the U.S. House and Senate over the years to repeal protection for patients with pre-existing conditions as part of repealing the Affordable Care Act, this ad might not immediately send whatever beverage you’re holding flying toward the screen unlucky enough to be showing it. But if you do know that Cory Gardner’s entire career in federal office going back to his original run for Congress in 2010 has been centered on repealing the Affordable Care Act, and in most cases his votes to repeal “Obamacare” made no attempt to protect anyone who has benefitted from the law in any way, you understand as you watch this ad that it is truly one of the most deceptive and outrageous messages ever conveyed to Colorado voters on any subject.

Everyone knows why this is happening. Although Gardner built his career around fact-free attacks on “Obamacare,” going back to his fictitious claims of hundreds of thousands of Coloradans “losing their coverage” while the law in truth drove the rate of uninsured in Colorado to record lows, in 2020 the Affordable Care Act is polling better than it did during all those years of single-minded Republican opposition. Despite the imperfections in the law that Republicans in Congress refused to allow anyone to address in their desire to see the ACA fail, and kicks at the underpinnings of the law like zeroing out the individual mandate, millions of people continue to benefit every year. In 2020, the global pandemic has refocused Americans’ attention on access to health care, and the ACA’s opponents are the ones who look dreadfully out of touch.

After so much of Gardner’s career has been spent trying to undo the very thing he tearfully promises to protect in this ad, all this ad proves is how little Gardner has actually delivered for the voters of Colorado–and how the state’s voters have been poorly served by Gardner’s right-wing agenda.

What Cory Gardner is promising, at long last, is to protect us from Cory Gardner.