Jared Polis on Health Care

Focus on danger of processed foods, but support vaccinations

POLIS: I have always said I don't agree with him talking about vaccinations in ways that are not true and in many ways could be dangerous, discouraging people from getting vaccinations. Of course, if he's talking about the dangers of processed foods and sugar, trying to ban Red No. 5 dye, reduce consumption of soda, candy, I'm all for that. I mean, anybody should. It's fact-based. The American people have higher obesity rates than almost any nation. We need to reduce chronic disease. If they do something right -- even a stopped clock is right twice a day -- by all means, let's jump on it, support it, and make it happen.

FDA should approve our prescription drug importation plan

Time to hold healthcare industry accountable for high costs

Offer more integrated physical and mental health services

Hope to add 1,300 healthcare practitioners in our state

Don't force people to choose between jobs or a COVID vaccine

Telehealth is literally a lifesaver for many in rural areas

Proposes drug price transparency & public option

Improve ObamaCare; work toward universal single-payer system

Jared Polis (D): Keep ACA and improve it. Work toward universal single-payer system. Believes Medicaid expansion in Colorado has been an enormous success.

Walker Stapleton (R): Repeal ACA & end Colorado's ObamaCare exchange. Shrinking Medicaid expansion would be among main changes he'd champion.

AdWatch: Supports Medicare for All

VERDICT: This is TRUE. Polis is supportive of single-payer health care. Calling it radical is opinion.

The ad refers to a bill introduced in January 2017, H.R. 676, "Medicare for All." It essentially creates a free health care system for all U.S. citizens. Polis signed on as a cosponsor of the bill in April 2017. No Republicans have put their name on this legislation.

Religious exemption from ObamaCare individual mandate.

Congressional Summary: To provide an additional religious exemption from the individual health coverage mandate. This Act may be cited as the `Equitable Access to Care and Health Act` or the `EACH Act`. The `Religious Conscience Exemption` exempts individuals who are members of a recognized religious sect which relies solely on a religious method of healing, and for whom the acceptance of medical health services would be inconsistent with their religious beliefs.

Supporters reasons for voting YEA: (TheHill.com weblog, April 29, 2013): `We believe the EACH Act balances a respect for religious diversity against the need to prevent fraud and abuse,` wrote Reps. Aaron Schock (R-IL) and William Keating (D-MA). `It is imperative we expand the religious conscience exemption now as the Administration is verifying the various exemptions to the individual mandate,` they wrote. Religious exemption from ObamaCare has come up before, including contraception. The EACH Act, however, deals only with exemptions from the insurance mandate.

Opponents reasons for voting NAY: (CHILD, Inc. `Children`s Healthcare Is a Legal Duty`, Dec. 2014): The Christian Science church is pushing hard to get another religious exemption through Congress. The EACH Act exempts everyone with `sincerely held religious beliefs` from the mandate to buy health insurance. We are particularly concerned about uninsured children: hundreds of American children have died because of their family`s religious objections to medical care. The EACH Act increases the risk to children in faith-healing sects and the cost to the state if the children do get medical care. Some complain that their church members should not have to pay for health care that they won`t use. But insurance works on the assumption that many in the pool of policyholders will not draw from it. Most people with fire insurance don`t have their homes burn, for example.

GOP can't beat ObamaCare, so they pretend it's a "disaster".

Heritage Action Summary: This vote would fully repeal ObamaCare.

Heritage Foundation recommendation to vote YES: (2/3/2015): ObamaCare creates $1.8 trillion in new health care spending and uses cuts to Medicare spending to help pay for some of it. Millions of Americans already have lost, and more likely will lose, their coverage because of ObamaCare. Many Americans have not been able to keep their doctors as insurers try to offset the added costs of ObamaCare by limiting the number of providers in their networks. In spite of the promise, the law increases the cost of health coverage.

Secretary of Labor Robert Reich recommendation to vote NO: (robertreich.org 11/22/2013): Having failed to defeat the Affordable Care Act, Republicans are now hell-bent on destroying the ObamaCare in Americans` minds, using the word `disaster` whenever mentioning the Act, and demand its repeal. Democrats [should] meet the Republican barrage with three larger truths:

1. The wreck of private insurance: Ours has been the only healthcare system in the world designed to avoid sick people. For-profit insurers have spent billions finding and marketing their policies to healthy people--while rejecting people with preexisting conditions, or at high risk.
2. We could not continue with this travesty of a healthcare system: ObamaCare is a modest solution. It still relies on private insurers--merely setting minimum standards and `exchanges` where customers can compare policies.
3. The moral imperative: Even a clunky compromise like the ACA between a national system of health insurance and a for-profit insurance market depends, fundamentally, on a social compact in which those who are healthier and richer are willing to help those who are sicker and poorer. Such a social compact defines a society.

Legislative outcome: Passed House 239-186-8; never came to a vote in the Senate.