Contact: Brad Bainum, bradb@wisdems.org
WAUWATOSA — Today, Wisconsin health care professionals gathered outside of Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin in Wauwatosa to highlight Republican U.S. Senate candidate Leah Vukmir‘s record of repeatedly siding with insurance companies over Wisconsinites in need of health care coverage.
At the event, the health care professionals drew attention to Vukmir in 2007 blocking two separate bills that would have required insurance companies to cover Wisconsinites’ autism treatments. First, Vukmir used her position as chair of the Assembly Committee on Health and Healthcare Reform to block and ultimately kill 2007 Assembly 417, a bill to require “health insurance coverage of treatment for autism spectrum disorders,” without so much as holding a hearing a vote or hearing on the measure. Then, Vukmir worked to sabotage 2007 Senate Bill 178, a bipartisan bill that passed the Senate to expand autism treatment coverage, ultimately voting to table and kill it.
Former state Rep. Sandy Pasch, a nurse, and Dr. Brady McIntosh, an emergency room specialist, also hit on Vukmir’s broader record of siding with insurance companies over patients and Vukmir’s support for repealing the Affordable Care Act and gutting its protections for Wisconsinites with pre-existing conditions:
