KOMU-TV recently interviewed Professor Robert Jerry for one of its TARGET 8 Fact Check stories on political advertising. The story is about the ads contesting Republican Senate candidate Josh Hawley’s positions on health insurance coverage for people with pre-existing conditions.

As Professor Jerry explains, excluding coverage for pre-existing conditions has been illegal for large group plans since 1996 and for individual and small group plans since the Affordable Care Act was enacted. If a Texas lawsuit that 18 attorneys general (including Josh Hawley) and 2 governors brought is successful in declaring the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional, exclusions for coverage for individuals with pre-existing conditions will be legal again.

In an op-ed in the Springfield News-Leader, Hawley proposed an alternative plan to cover pre-existing conditions.

Professor Jerry says of the ongoing debate over health insurance, which has become a major issue in the Missouri senate race, “Health insurance is complicated, and the way the different pieces come together is hard for anyone to understand, but there’s a lot at stake.”