For Immediate Release
Thursday, Nov. 3rd, 2022

Contact: Josselyn Berry, Jberry@azdem.org

In Final Days Before Election, Kari Lake’s Closing Argument Calls for Taking Away People’s Healthcare

PHOENIX– In a real throwback moment, Kari Lake called for repealing the Affordable Care Act at a campaign event on Monday, resurrecting the deeply unpopular Republican rallying cry that’s mostly been abandoned by the GOP. “We need a red wave, and we need to overturn Obamacare and come up with something better,” Lake said at a campaign event in Scottsdale. Her comments drew “no audible reaction”  from the crowd.
 

Scott Smith, former chief of staff to Republican Governor Jan Brewer, said in response, “I guess we should unenroll unknown tens of thousands of kids and families from AHCCCS, start closing rural hospitals, halt all the metro hospital expansions, lose thousands of jobs and pay higher health insurance premiums.”
 

Despite relentless attacks, the program didn’t just survive the GOP’s decade-long assault, it was strengthened, thanks to the COVID-19 relief package that President Joe Biden signed into law in 2021. In 2013,  Katie Hobbs worked across the aisle with Republican Gov. Jan Brewer to expand Medicaid, embracing a key part of Obamacare, during her time as a legislator, so that hundreds of thousands of Arizonans could finally have access to health care.
 

“Lake’s rallying cry to repeal Obamacare is an unpopular message to push in the final days of the election, and it’s further proof that Lake has no interest in moderating herself. At a time when Arizonans are dealing with the prices of gas and groceries, the last thing they need is to lose their healthcare entirely,” said Josselyn Berry, spokesperson for the Arizona Democratic Party.