2014 WV Senate debate: on Health Care

Shelley Moore Capito: Vote for repeal & replace; but work for fixing ObamaCare

Capito: "What I would vote for is to repeal and replace. I've voted for that 50 times but I also recognize that the ACA has some good things about it. So we need to keep what's good and replace it with what will work."

Tennant: "I will never go back to the days when insurance companies can deny insurance for someone with a pre-existing condition."

John Buckley: Less government in healthcare; more individual choice

John Buckley: ObamaCare is a Big Government bacterial infection

My opponents propose an aspirin to "fix" the government mess; I propose market-based solutions as an antibiotic to Big Government's bacterial infection.

John Raese: ObamaCare relies on poor business model; use private-sector

Now all can see what ObamaCare critics like the business-savvy Raese was trying to tell us in 2012, namely what a terribly poor business model ObamaCare has. Without millions of younger Americans to participate in ObamaCare to offset all of the older participants, ObamaCare can't possibly work.

However, what are the odds of getting enough of these young Americans to pay higher health care insurance premiums when they don't feel the need for expensive plans in the first place? Everyone sees this--now. Raese saw problems like this from the beginning.

John Raese was the state's Number One challenger to ObamaCare in his races against Manchin. He tried to tell us.

Natalie Tennant: Supports access to insurance for all

Take ObamaCare for example, which is losing popularity due to the mismanaged enrollment process. Tennant wants to find the right balance on ObamaCare. During a recent appearance on Talkline, when asked directly whether she would have voted for or against ACA if she were in the Senate, Tennant equivocated. "We need to have West Virginians have the ability to have access to health care," Tennant said. "I am going to vote for West Virginians, the 270,000 (uninsured), to be able to have access to health care, to not deny these individuals."

It was a way of supporting the concept of insurance for all, particularly those with pre-existing conditions, without actually saying she supports ObamaCare.

Natalie Tennant: FactCheck: GOP says 147,000 lose insurance; really 8,800

The National Republican Senatorial Committee sent out a press release attempting to tie the Affordable Care Act to Secretary of State Natalie Tennant. The NRSC claimed 147,000 West Virginia residents "are at risk of losing their health insurance," but a health care analyst for the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy, said that figure is far above any estimates he's seen, which are around 28,000.

An NRSC spokesperson said the group obtained its numbers from census data, although the Daily Mail could not find that number on the census website.