October 08, 2014 12:12 PM UTC

Gardner's Debate Disaster, Part 1: Cory's Health Plan

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• by: Colorado Pols

The Denver Post has posted video clips of a number of key exchanges from last night's pivotal U.S. Senate race debate between Mark Udall and Cory Gardner. We certainly encourage readers to watch the debate in its entirety, but these clips zero in on the most impactful moments–almost all of them major breakdowns for Gardner's central campaign messages. We'll be talking about these clips a lot in the coming days:

Our first clip is of Gardner's refusal last night to divulge details of the health insurance plan he claims was cancelled due to the Affordable Care Act, and for which an "equivalent" replacement was supposedly much higher cost. As we've covered in detail in this space, Gardner's claims are impossible to substantiate based on the experience of others buying insurance from the Colorado health insurance marketplace. FOX 31's Eli Stokols tried valiantly to get the details on Gardner's insurance plan, and was stonewalled in response. Last night, the Denver Post's political news editor Chuck Plunkett pressed Gardner for these same details, and got similar evasive talking points in reply. We're actually quite surprised to see that in the week between Gardner's disastrous interview with Stokols and last night's debate, Gardner didn't come up with some kind of better answer to this very basic question–a question central to Gardner's campaign, as he regularly claims that his experience with Obamacare is what motivated him to run for the U.S. Senate.

Last night, after listening to Gardner recite his boilerplate against Obamacare, Plunkett tried to get back to the question he had originally posed:

CHUCK PLUNKETT: Mr. Gardner, could we take just a few more seconds, and, and we wanted to try to get a specific answer to the question…

(Audience laughter, applause)

PLUNKETT: Why did you redact the portion of the specific plan your family was using?

CORY GARDNER: Because we found a solution, an insurance policy that we liked. That our family liked. The same kind of solution that 340,000 other Coloradans found. 340,000 Coloradans found a health insurance policy that they liked. What Senator Udall promised, is that if you liked your health care plan, you could keep it. He did not say–and what Senator Udall wants to do is to say is this. He wants to say that well, your policy didn't do this, or your policy didn't do that…

PLUNKETT: Mr. Gardner, I'm sorry, we, if you would like to answer the specific question, we have a few more times, a little bit more time…

GARDNER: Well I'm happy to debate the failure of Obamacare, this entire hour if Senator Udall would agree. 

MARK UDALL: Congressman, I think you ought to… (gestures)

GARDNER: Okay, let's do it, if you want to debate…

PLUNKETT: No no, no no but we've got all these question we want to ask, so…

LYNN BARTELS: Cory, hold off.

UDALL: If I might, Chuck I'd like to get a word in here, the Congressman hasn't…

GARDNER: Am I allowed a rebuttal, if he's allowed a rebuttal to this question….

UDALL: The Congressman hasn't answered this question, as you know, and I think he should answer…

BARTELS: Rebut at him, we're trying to get you to answer a specific question. [Pols emphasis]

GARDNER: Well then I'm allowed to rebut.

PLUNKETT: Wait a second, let's get control of the situation here. Every now and then, I will want, or Lynn will want, we'll look at each other and confer to ask a follow-up question if we think a question was answered. That's our prerogative. Sometimes if a candidate doesn't answer a question, that also tells you something about the candidate that voters can know. [Pols emphasis] But right now we're going to move on to…

(Audience laughter)

GARDNER: Now Chuck, I would like to address what you just said.

PLUNKETT: That's not applicable to just you, Mr. Gardner, that would apply to any candidate that doesn't specifically answer a question.

By the end, it was painfully obvious why Gardner won't divulge the details of his pre-Obamacare insurance plan. It's because something in those details would severely undermine the claims he has made. At this point, Gardner has taken almost as much damage from refusing to release these details than he would if he simply admitted he's not being honest–but for obvious reasons, Cory Gardner can't do that. The only thing Gardner can do now is fall back on old talking points, like the highly misleading one about 340,000 Coloradans who "had their health plans cancelled"–debunked by the fact that the rate of uninsured in Colorado has plummeted since Obamacare took effect. The truth is, most of the claims being made about Obamacare today have been debunked by health insurance consumers' own experiences, and simple arithmetic showing the number of uninsured has shrunk not grown.

For anyone who knows even part of the story–a growing number of voters, but especially political insiders in Washington following these races down the stretch–Gardner's credibility is totally destroyed by this exchange. Its damage can only be limited by limiting the number of voters who see it. And if Democrats are on their game, they'll spread this clip far and wide over the next three weeks.