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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

ACA Supporters Speak Out as Polls Show Health Care a Top Election Issue

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Tuesday, October 30, 2018   

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The midterm election is just a week away, and polls show that health care is one of voters' biggest concerns.

According to a recent poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation, 27 percent of those polled named health care as the top issue candidates should address - second only to corruption in Washington, at 30 percent. Harry Orchard, a small businessman from Clayton, Mo., said he believes the Affordable Care Act should be perfected, not eliminated, as Republicans in Congress have voted to do dozens of times.

"My personal political belief is that health care is not a privilege, it's a right,” Orchard said. “And the ACA went a long way to fixing a very broken system."

Missouri is one of 14 states that refused Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act. The state's uninsured rate stands at 9 percent - higher than many states that did expand the program.

The Show Me State's Republican state Attorney General, Josh Hawley, is one of 20 GOP state officials suing to end the ACA, arguing it is unconstitutional. He is now running for U.S. Senate and has called the ACA a failed policy that curbs people's freedoms.

The ACA made it illegal for coverage to be denied or premiums raised based on a person's health status. Orchard said in light of the lawsuit, he thinks it's hypocritical of Hawley to run campaign ads touting his support for people with pre-existing conditions.

"I think he's actually been flagged as having run one of the most dishonest ads in the country, using his own son who has some pre-existing condition as evidence of how he's for protection of pre-existing conditions,” Orchard said. “That's a bald-faced lie, and I think Missouri voters recognize that."

The Kaiser poll also found that 75 percent of those surveyed said it was "very important" to ensure coverage for people with such conditions.


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