DeWine’s health-care attack lacks documentation

THE AD: “Cordray is Lying,” a 30-second TV commercial from the gubernatorial campaign of Republican Mike DeWine.

WHERE TO SEE IT: Statewide cable and broadcast TV stations. The campaign did not provide a link to the video of the spot.

IMAGES: Slow-motion video of Democratic gubernatorial nominee Richard Cordray speaking. Images of DeWine conferring with various people. A dimly lit, eerie segment in which a mother appears to hover over the bed of a sick child. SCRIPT: (Female narrator) “Richard Cordray is lying. Mike DeWine voted seven times to provide health care to those with pre-existing conditions. Richard Cordray — never once. Cordray’s plan separated the sick from their doctors and cut seniors’ medical care by $800 billion, and he’ll go further, creating higher DeWine costs, more red tape, less access to treatment, and longer waits. When time matters most, Richard Cordray’s failed Washington ideas are a risk to Ohio, a risk to you.”

ANALYSIS: With Cordray repeatedly attacking DeWine over his record on healthinsurance coverage for those withpreexisting conditions, DeWine is attempting to fight back. The spot says DeWine voted seven times to protect pre-existing conditions. The Republican’s campaign is counting DeWine votes in Congress between 1989 and 2006 on bills ensuring coverage of pre-existing conditions. Most involved expensive, “high-risk” state health-insurance pools for the uninsured with health problems.

DeWine, however, never stated that he favored retaining pre-existing conditions coverage when he joined fellow Republican attorneys general in 2011 in a failed bid to overturn Obamacare and its requirement of coverage for pre-existing conditions. DeWine said the law was unconstitutional due to its imposition of tax fines on those who failed to buy health insurance. In 2012, he did say he hoped Congress would address preexisting conditions if the Affordable Care Act was overturned in court; it was not.

The spot claims Cordray never voted on pre-existing conditions, although he cast a vote in 1992 while in the Ohio House to insist on such coverage as part of a health-care bill.

The DeWine campaign said the attacks on Cordray are based on his support of Obamacare. The “$800 billion” cut in Medicare benefits actually is a misleading talking point because it did not deprive people of care, according to Politifact.

As to what Cordray proposals would create higher health-care costs, more red tape, less access to treatment and longer waits, it is as undocumented as the commercial itself.