Quiz candidates on health access and coverage

Have your questions ready; the candidates are coming.

With about two months remaining before the Nov. 4 general election, expect to be blasted with a fire-hose-stream of information about candidates running for Congress and the state Legislature.

Not all of it will be particularly helpful, especially that coming from negative campaign ads on television, radio and in your mailbox. More useful can be the statements coming directly from candidates themselves in news coverage, at public forums and even at your doorstep as they look to talk personally with voters.

A little preparation on the part of voters can help make certain you get the responses you need as you consider who to support. And even if you can’t question a candidate directly, a little background can help you gauge candidates’ responses as to what they support, what they don’t and how well they understand the issues and your concerns.

Voters will have their own priorities they’ll want to see candidates address, but questions over health care are already top of mind for many voters. A poll by NBC and the Wall Street Journal in June found that 22 percent of voters counted health care as their top issue when considering candidates, followed by the economy and jobs (19 percent), firearms (13 percent) taxes and spending (11 percent) and immigration (10 percent).

Another June poll, by the Kaiser Family Foundation, asked more specifically about the Affordable Care Act’s provisions protecting coverage for people with pre-existing conditions; 63 percent said continuing coverage of pre-existing conditions was either the most important or very important in their consideration of which candidates to support.

There’s good reason for that concern.

With Republicans unable last year to repeal and replace the ACA, also known as Obamacare, the Trump administration and Republicans at the state and national level have instead sought to force its collapse.

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