Ohio Senate Candidate: Sick People Will Find Health Insurance If Washington Cuts Foreign Aid

Ohio GOP senate candidate Josh Mandel said during a debate against Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) on Monday that he would extend coverage to people with pre-existing conditions by cutting military spending and reducing aid to Pakistan, Egypt, and Libya:

QUESTION: As unpopular as Obamacare is among conservatives, there are some elements of the plan that have popular support, for example, allowing young people to stay on their parents’ insurance until they’re 26, and requiring that people with pre-existing conditions can get insurance. How would you, and with specificity please, how would you maintain those benefits without the requirement of people buying insurance?

MANDEL: You have to make cuts in other parts of the government in order to pay to cover folks with pre-existing conditions you question, with young adults, on their parents’ insurance, if there are leaders in Washington who want to do that, without Obamacare on the books, you’ve got to make significant cuts. A lot of Republicans will say don’t touch defense, don’t touch the military. Listen, if we are going to have a good faith conversation about strong health care, about a balanced budget, we need to actually make cuts in defense. I mention some of my ideas in respect to Europe. Another place I’d like to cut, I mentioned Pakistan, but I need to get a little more specific. A few weeks ago, in Egypt, our embassy was overrun. In Libya, our ambassador was killed. Why in the world is Sherrod Brown and other politicians in Washington voting to give our tax dollars to countries that harbor terrorists, when we need that money here to pay for health care, to protect Medicare, to protect Social Security?

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Mandel supports the full repeal of the Affordable Care Act. That law provides coverage to people with pre-existing conditions by encouraging the healthy to purchase coverage before they fall ill and offering income-based subsidies to help make insurance more affordable. Mandel did not explain how his proposed cuts would help the 129 million Americans with pre-existing conditions afford coverage in an unregulated insurance market.