Senator Claire McCaskill (D) made a campaign stop outside a local custard shop on U.S. Highway 50 on the western side of Sedalia late this afternoon. She took questions from local media and individuals in attendance.

Senator Claire McCaskill (D) at a campaign stop in Sedalia, Missouri on July 1, 2012.

Listening to a question.

On the U.S. Supreme Court decision on the Affordable Care Act:

[….] Question: ….I’d like to have your comment on, uh, the Supreme Court’s, uh, decision on the, uh, health act.

Senator Claire McCaskill (D): Well, uh, at first it’s important to know that one of the most conservative chief justices in the history of our nation held up this law. And now we’re gonna have a chance, um, to, for Missourians to see what it really is instead of what they’ve been told it is. There are so many untruths that are being told about this reform. And it is important that Missourians get a chance, they’re gonna be surprised that it is gonna bring the insurance companies to heel. It’s gonna tell them to quit playing around and try to avoid giving care. It’s gonna cut down on how many times they can say no to claims. It’s gonna make insurance more accessible and affordable, and it is not a massive tax increase. Um, and so it is really not what people have told them and I’m looking forward to people realizing, uh, what it really is and I think they’re gonna like it very much if they’ll just give it a chance.

Responding to a question from a local radio reporter.

What I’m worried about is they’re putting all these lies out there about this legislation to distract people from what they want to do, which is ironic since they want to privatize Medicare. What they want the seniors to do is have to wrestle with insurance companies. Um, and I think if people would just take a deep breath and go, wait a minute, wait a minute, they’re gonna take away the Medicare that we rely on, uh, I think that would have, um, the kind of impact that most Missourians would reject. And so I think they’re doing some of this distortions, try to distract people from what their plans are.

[….]

Question: ….they brought up a point that the Supreme Court decision might not be so good because now, it was their opinion, that the funding for it would have, would go through the budget re, reconciliation fees, method, which does not require a sixty vote method to bring it up to a vote.

Senator McCaskill: Well, um, I think the Republicans are saying that they, they want to repeal the whole thing. [voice: “Right.”] They want to repeal, um, being able to stay on your parents policies until you’re twenty-six. They want to repeal the ability to get insurance if you have preexisting conditions. They want to repeal a free preventative care, uh, for people, um, to make sure we cut down on the high cost of disease ’cause they’re not caught until late in the game.

Um, now, to do that they would like to take this to a reconciliation, they would like to take the Senate and do it through reconciliation which take fifty-one votes. But, to do that they’ve got to defeat a bunch of Democrats in November. So what I’m hoping is that Missourians will take time to go to healthcare dot gov and learn the truth about this legislation so they’ll realize that, um, it, it’s time that we really tell the insurance companies that, um, they can’t spend half of every premium dollar they collect on big salaries for their CEOs and hiring more people to deny claims. They have to spend eighty percent of what they take in in claims now under this law on your health care. And if they spend more than that, um, on administration they have to rebate the money to the policy holders. And those checks will start going out in September.

So, I think that people think this is a government plan, it’s not. They are all private insurance companies. They’re being told now that it’s a massive tax increase, which is just a flat out lie. It’s just not true. It’s a hundred and forty-three billion dollars of tax cuts in this bill for small businesses and, and, and small families. And, uh, and an ability for people to get affordable insurance if they don’t get insurance at work. And if you get insurance at work nothing in this bill’s gonna change that.

And the only people that have to pay the penalty for not getting insurance are, is the guy who decides he’d rather buy a new Harley Davidson than pay for health insurance and then he lays it on the pavement out here and wants all of us to pay his health care bill. Uh, it’s just for the freeloaders….