West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin spent much of Friday morning at Wheeling Hospital, meeting with some of the area’s clergy to talk about healthcare. 

Senator Manchin’s main concern was pre-existing conditions and how losing healthcare would impact their congregations, and thousands of people across West Virginia. 

“Take the politics out,” Senator Manchin said. “Take the Democratic and Republican bickering and fighting away from it and look at it in real terms and in real people.”

In his efforts to protect healthcare for West Virginians, Senator Manchin is looking to the faith-community to help find the answers. 

“They’re speaking of the basic needs that people have,” he said about the round table discussion.”They’re seeing  people that are working hard to survive, just keeping their family alive and things above board. They’re seeing families that are in desperate need that have a hardship.”

The discussion focused largely on healthcare coverage for pre-existing conditions, something that effects thousands across the Mountain State. 

“Who doesn’t get sick at some point in their life or have loved ones who are sick?” said Rabbi Joshua Lief of Temple Shalom in Wheeling. “Everyone’s concerned about access to the market and also about the price of having insurance and if you have insurance, the premiums going up and the cost of medicines.”

Senator Manchin also spoke at length about Texas vs. United States, a pending federal lawsuit that challenges the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act.

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey is one of twenty attorneys general named in the suit. 

Manchin says if it passes, it will jeopardize 800,000 West Virginians with pre-existing conditions, allowing insurance companies to deny them coverage. 

“Then it all comes tumbling down so people that are getting treatment for addiction for the first time won’t be able to do that,” he added. “People that are getting treatment for mental illness for the first time, senior citizens that are getting services they haven’t gotten before.” 

Manchin recently introduced a resolution that would allow the Senate Legal Counsel to intervene on that case. 

“They’ll (insurance companies) say ‘well you’re just too sick we’re not going to insure you or we’re going to put a cap and once you use that that’s all you can use and you pay everything’, so usually people with any type of severe illnesses are one illness away from catastrophic results from that.” 

While many at the round table shared stories of their congregations, and say there’s an obligation on each of us to take care of our fellow human beings. 

“There’s a lot of good work going on,” Rabbi Lief continued. “The question is could we accomplish even more if we could see each other as valued participants in one singular society and work together towards shared solutions to our shared problems?”. 

Senator Manchin also said this is an economic issue. 

“Healthcare right now is one sixth of the economy of this great country of ours,” he explained. “In West Virginia if you lose healthcare, we don’t fix it, you’ll have every hospital, every clinic, every doctor, every nurse will be effected. Unable to keep their doors open and take care of people. This is what we’re talking about. This is the real effect.”

7News reached out to Attorney General Morrisey’s office for comment.

They first referred us to the following statement from Republican National Committee Spokesperson Brett Tubbs: 

“While Sen. Manchin tries to score political points, West Virginia families are being hurt by his family hiking the price of Mylan’s EpiPen. If Sen. Manchin truly cared about the healthcare of West Virginians, he’d address the fact that his family continues to profit off of hiking the price of lifesaving drugs.”

Attorney General Patrick Morrisey later released this statement to 7News:

“There is no debate that we must help those with preexisting conditions. The real issue is why won’t Joe Manchin address Obamacare’s rising health care premiums that are hurting West Virginia families. Clearly, Manchin is trying to distract from his liberal record of supporting the Obama’s failed policies.”  Attorney General Patrick Morrisey