West Virginia Secretary of State Natalie Tennant, the Democratic candidate for the open Senate seat there, is showing a little bit of love for Obamacare and specifically its ban on discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions in a new television ad.
Like a similar ad from Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AK), Tennant tells a personal story, avoids naming the Affordable Care Act and certainly doesn’t embrace the law wholesale. But it is yet another bit of evidence of Obamacare’s changing politics that an underdog Democratic candidate in a state that went 62 percent for Mitt Romeny in 2012 would implicitly associate with the law at all.
Tennant relays the story of her daughter Delaney, who she says had open-heart surgery just a week after being born. As a result, she tells the camera, “the insurance company called her a pre-existing condition.”
“I know health care reform wasn’t done right, and there’s a lot I’ll do to make it better for West Virginia,” she says. “But I will never go back to the days of letting insurance companies deny coverage to our children.”
Polling has routinely found that the ban on discrimination against those with pre-existing conditions is one of the most popular parts of Obamacare.
The ad is being aired in three markets on a $50,000 buy in its first week, according to Tennant’s campaign, which plans to spend more on it in the future.
