According to a review by American Ledger, unelected Senator Kelly Loeffler has repeatedly supported policies that would disproportionately harm Georgia’s nearly 700,000 veterans. In less than one year in office, Loeffler has supported a complete repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and has opposed fully funding the United States Postal Service that veterans rely on for prescription medication through the VA.
Although nearly 500,000 veterans across the country receive health care because of the Affordable Care Act, Loeffler has opposed the law for years. After being appointed to the Senate, she dodged questions about her support for a lawsuit seeking to overturn the entire ACA, which guarantees health care to tens of millions of Americans, enshrines protections for people with pre-existing conditions, and allows those under the age of 26 to remain on their parents’ insurance plans. According to a recent report using federal Census Bureau data, a repeal or partial rollback of the ACA would leave more vets without coverage and put more strain on the VA health care system.
In addition to opposing the ACA, Loeffler has defended slowdowns in USPS mail service, which hundreds of thousands of veterans rely on for prescription drugs that are provided by the VA. During the summer of 2020, mail slowdowns caused “dangerous delays” in deliveries of prescription medication, putting thousands of American lives at risk. Despite the urgent need for action on behalf of American veterans, Loeffler said the Senate should not have ended its summer recess to come back to work on the issue, even calling the life-threatening mail slowdowns “a fake crisis.”
And while Loeffler was voting to strip health care from hundreds of thousands of veterans, and ignoring critical USPS slowdowns, she did find time to look out for her own interests. Earlier this year, Loeffler sold $20 million in stock after receiving a private Senate briefing on the COVID-19 pandemic, denied the reality of Trump’s loss, and boasted about an endorsement from a famed conspiracy theorist Congresswoman-elect.
Loeffler is on the ballot for the first time as a candidate in the Senate runoff on January 5th against Democratic candidate Raphael Warnock.