On "Fox News Sunday" yesterday, host Chris Wallace interviewed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), and asked a question that too often goes overlooked: "One of the keys to 'Obamacare' is that it will extend insurance access to 30 million people who are now uninsured. In your replacement, how would you provide universal coverage?"
Notice McConnell's reluctance to answer the question. Wallace had to ask three times about the tens of millions of Americans who have no health coverage, before the Republican senator said what he actually believes: "That's not the issue."
When Wallace followed by asking, "You don't think the 30 million people that are uninsured is an issue?" McConnell changed the subject.
The importance of this cannot be overstated. There are 30 million Americans who can't afford to see a doctor. They are one serious illness away from bankruptcy. Tens of thousands of Americans die every year because they have no insurance. The United States is the only industrialized democracy on the planet that allows this to happen to its own citizens.
And the Republican solution to this problem is to conclude that it is not a problem in need of solution. The GOP policy to help these millions of Americans is ... literally nothing. They are, in Mitch McConnell's words, "not the issue."
There's no mystery as to the GOP's motivations. The right sees health care as a privilege -- if tens of millions Americans can't afford to see a doctor, well, they simply haven't earned it.
Indeed, McConnell's choice of words was startling, but he only made explicit what we already knew. Though it's been long forgotten, House Republicans in 2009 unveiled a rival health care reform plan to ostensibly compete against the Democratic proposal. What did the GOP policy do to expand access to those without insurance? Nothing; it ignored them.
Likewise, this year, Mitt Romney's Republican presidential campaign has offered no solutions whatsoever to help those without access to basic medical care.
As we discussed last Wednesday, Democrats believe Americans must have the ability to seek basic medical care, and Republicans believe the opposite. As Jon Chait explained the day before the Supreme Court's ruling, it's a moral question that the parties answer differently.
Several reporters have recently filed dispatches showing in human terms what sort of conditions we would be perpetuating in the event that five Republican Supreme Court Justices, or a potential Republican-run government next year, partially or completely nullify the Affordable Care Act. A man will watch the tumor in his leg grow to the size of a melon, and his wife will sew special pants to fit the growing bulge, because he has no insurance. A woman will hobble around for four years on an untreated broken ankle she can’t have repaired. People will line up in their cars and spend the night in a parking lot queuing for a rare free health clinic.
Maybe these stories sound like cheap emotional manipulation. They are actually a clarifying tool to cut through the rhetorical fog surrounding the health-care debate and define the question in the most precise terms.
Quite right. In precise terms, though both major American political parties accept the basic premise of the free-enterprise system -- those with more wealth will, as Chait put it, "enjoy vastly greater comforts and pleasures than others" -- Democrats and Republicans differ on what the consequences should be for those with less.
"What is being disputed is whether the punishments to the losers in the market system should include, in addition to these other things, a denial of access to non-emergency medical treatment. The Republican position is that it should."
This is obviously, painfully, demonstrably true, though it doesn't come up often in polite conversation.
There are basic American institutions that enjoy broad political support. Everyone in the country, regardless of wealth, is entitled to go to a public school. We can go to public libraries. If there's an emergency, we can call the police and/or the fire department. When we're older, we can count on Medicare and Social Security. Up until very recently -- right up until the radicalization of the Republican Party -- these basic observations were uncontroversial elements of American society. They enjoyed the status of consensus.
But if we want to see a doctor, the consensus disappears. Democrats believe you're entitled to seek non-emergency medical care, just as you're entitled to send your kid to school or ask the fire department to put out a fire. Republicans believe the ability to see a doctor is a luxury. They are, as Chait noted, "the only mainstream political party in the advanced world" to believe it's acceptable to deny basic medical care to citizens based on their wealth.
And Mitch McConnell reminded the political world yesterday that his party has no intention of changing any time soon.
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Here's a little pre senate background on McConnell!
http://www.hillbillyreport.com/blog/2007/02/senator_mitch_m_1.html
Not that there's anything wrong with that, unless you're Mitch McConnell's voting record.
Step right up, Senator! The line for Fanswats forms to the right!
Mitch McConnell was merely paraphrasing another monster- one also responsible for the deaths of 30 million citizens:
"One uninsured American is a tragedy. Thirty million is a statistic."
Don't the Republicans see that denial of health care causes a negative fiscal impact for doctors, hospitals, and drug companies? Those medical professionals need more, not fewer, patients who can pay for medical treatments.
The article said 30 mil. that cant afford insurance. How are they going to pay the mandated premiums?Just askin.Who is to pay for them?Government? Who supports the government? Taxpayers?
Just once , Just once I would love to see one of these douchebags confront a real journalist.
They would not last one minute.
Talking points /lies . It's all they have
Check out the Nora O'Donnell Face the Nation interview with Boehner. He was squirmin' and dancin'. She was pretty relentless. The link wouldn't stick, sorry.
I saw that- and said to myself, soon, that redhead will be 'spending more time with her family'
Teh Media does NOT like reporters who "go rogue"!
If even Cokie Roberts (defender of Repubs) says it's going to backfire for Republicans, the whole group must be pretty dense.
I must admit I was surprised Wallace even asked the question, astounded that he pursued it seeking an answer.
If they were more given to analysis than to self-worship, the Republicans would notice that the 30 million uninsured cost us more as a society than their insurance would cost. Enlightened self-interest would suggest we just provide the insurance. It would lower our insurance premiums, reduce demand on health care resources caused by lack of preventive medicine, and allow the 30 million to be more productive citizens. But enlightened self-interest is not so popular as the Republican base's fear that someone might get something for nothing. Faith, hope, and especially charity be damned!
Intelligence is required to come up with those answers. Republicans have lost the ability to reason. They just follow what Faux news tells them.
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits"
Albert Einstein
Shorter Mitch McConnell/republican viewpoint:
- If you are poor & get sick or injured then die, sooner rather than later
- If you are working poor without insurance & get sick or injured then die, sooner rather than later
- If you are working middle class who is underinsured & get sick or injured, then pay all of the money that you have to the health care industry then die, sooner rather than later
What parts of the mantras of the funding wing of the republican party are so hard to understand?
- More is never enough!
- I've got mine, f*ck you!
He could have answered the question, but "They can go to hell for all I care" might have sounded a little too honest- I mean cold blooded.
Uhhhhhhh . . . hmmmmmmmmm. . . how interesting that one of the most irrelevant men in America -- the leader of a dying breed of racist radicals -- sees 30 million or more of us as irrelevant.
Henry Kissinger once called most of us ' useless eaters ' too, and where is he now ? Who cares ?
Most of these old bastards are either in nursing homes or on their way there and then the world will belong to those who embrace ALL people as having lives that matter.
Good riddance you evil, dried up old farts.
So basically Rep. Grayson wasn't wrong when he said the GOTP plan for healthcare was "if you get sick, die quickly", and yet I remember he took quite a bit of heat from the GOTP for it!! All of them owe him an apology - he wasn't lying he was telling the truth!!
And yet scaredy cat Democrats can't make this a winning issue for them.
Just boggles the mind.
We need to all speak up, even if it makes you unpopular.
Ask a republican about public education or clean tap water...
Do you like driving down the highway without paying tolls?
Poor people don't matter. Only the unborn and the rich seem to have any pull in the Republican party.
Oh, and really the unborn do not matter at all. The republicans have realized that there is a large class of voting citizens that will vote for you if you promise to protect the unborn. The key is that these citizens do not care what else these Republicans stand for, economically or socially. The Republicans win the votes of people voting on single issues: abortion, lower taxes, smaller government, strong military, relaxed gun laws, etc.
Why is it that Republicans keep forgetting these words? They need to be reminded AS OFTEN AS POSSIBLE - especially that part about "promote the GENERAL welfare":
Perhaps it had something to do with their defenition of liberty http://www.alternet.org/visions/156071/conservative_southern_values_revived:_how_a_brutal_strain_of_american_aristocrats_have_come_to_rule_america/
quite an enlightening perspevtive on the modern GOTP and why our values and our constitution, really mean nothing to them. Knowing your enemy is half the battle...knocking their ass-backwards ideals, and indeed culture, out of existance is the other.
That was a very well done article, and it explains so much! Thank you for providing a link!!! I think I am going to continue to "follow" Sara Robinson!!
You are welcome. And help me spread the link, wherever appropriate
Everyone should read the article!!
Every dem and their reps needs to TELL the GOTP
LIFE LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS includs heath-care , so its in the constitution
I just looked up the Confederate States Constitution and here is IT'S Preamble:
You will note that there are significant changes more in line with what the Republicans would like now! Note that there is NOTHING about the "general welfare"!!
You are sooo right! The Confederacy is alive and well and we are fighting the Civil War AGAIN!!
Is it just my selective sampling or does it seem that every time I see this man he's saying something stupid or terrible? Does he have any other modes of communication beyond "bumbling fool" or "heartless bastard"?
He does, but I think the media all "photo-shop" his nose....
I see Mitch McConnell as detestable and repugnant!
...the @!$%# is a meat axe?
How come not ONE media outfit asks the question 'WHY didn't you do something about health care when you owned all three branches of government?' Not 'what would you do NOW'...This is not some arcane weird issue. They RAVAGED Hillary in the 90's, promised promised promised, and did NOTHING when THEY could have. Oh yeah right...9/11.
I have been thinking the same thing the last few days as we have watched the local and msm go back into the same mode it did after the aca was passed , the gop have never offered any solution , and they are still asking them
" what should america do about health care ? " ....
THIS is their answer , NOTHING , the media refuse to accept that answer from the GOP , and actively give them cover when they spit it out like mconnel did
In modern times have we ever seen such a reaction to a law being passed ? They are all determined to claim it is STILL not legitimate , while handing the microphone to the propagandist over and over again , you can not convince me this script is not handed to these putz news orgs by the owners and editorial boards
I pulled this whole clothe from smarty pants(hat tip JJP).
It goes directly to the issue you posted about McConnell. More importantly it explains how health insurance in the private sector works now and why companies, especially small ones, do not offer it.
ACA - a look at the health insurance exchanges
I'm one of the lucky ones. I have health insurance through my employer - who pays 85% of the premiums on a plan with 100% coverage (no deductibles) and small co-pays. The fact of the matter is that I live in a state (Minnesota) where that's not unusual. We rank 3rd in the nation in terms of those who are insured (91%), with only Massachusetts and Hawaii doing better (we're tied with Wisconsin and Vermont). Frankly, when all the conversation about health care reform happened a few years ago, I got educated real quickly about just how lucky I am from the stories I began reading in the media and on the blogs. So in many ways, my support for this legislation has always been mostly about what it would mean for other people who aren't so lucky.
But there's one aspect of health care reform that has always been important to me - the exchanges that are scheduled to go into effect in 2014. That's because at my place of employment, I am responsible for our budget - which means finding a way to pay for that 85% of the employer contribution.
As you probably already know from reading here, I'm the executive director of a small nonprofit. We have about 25 employees (less than 20 who participate in our health insurance plan) and the average age is probably about mid-30's.
Some people might not know that when an insurance company provides quotes for the costs of insurance, they take into account what the individual or group has cost them in the past. For large companies, that means that costs are averaged over a large pool of people. For someone like us - one person who needs surgery or has a chronic illness can send our rates sky high. As a matter of fact, for several years now we have been at the very top rate our insurance company charges - even though our pool tends to be young and pretty healthy. Overall, we pay much higher rates than large companies do.
I first realized the cost of this to our small nonprofit when we hired a woman many years ago who had a chronic illness. About the time our annual insurance quote was provided to us, she had realized that the job wasn't a good fit and had moved on. But our rates went up by double digits. When we told the insurance company that she was no longer an employee, our rates went way down.
This is the problem the health insurance exchanges in ACA are meant to address. Each state will be required to set up these exchanges where individuals and small businesses can purchase their insurance. That means that - once they're up and running - the rates in the exchanges will be set by a much larger pool of participants. So instead of our rates being determined by the use of the 20 or so individuals at our nonprofit, they will be based on all of the participants in the Minnesota exchange - thus extending to us the kind of benefit experienced by large companies.
The ACA requires that there be at least 2 insurance companies included in each exchange, and that at least one of those has be a non-profit. It also requires that each insurance company included in the exchange offer at least 4 options of coverage for the individual/business to chose from and there are limits on the amount of out-of-pocket expenses that can be charged to individual customers via co-pays and deductibles.
But here's a really interesting aspect to all of this that many of those who were in perennial poutrage mode about the public option missed. ACA allocated $4.8 billion towards establishing something they call a Consumer Operated and Oriented Plan (CO-OP) to compete in the exchanges. Here's how Kaiser describes it (pdf):
Finally, there is one very interesting thing the ACA did to ensure these exchanges work. The law requires that all members of Congress and their congressional staff purchase their health insurance through these exchanges (page 81, sec. 1312). So starting in 2014, my two Senators and Congresswoman (along with all their staff) will be participating in the same exchange my little nonprofit does to purchase health insurance. If it doesn't work, they'll feel it too...personally.
Initially setting up these exchanges has been left to the states. You might have heard stories about Republican governors and legislatures refusing to do so. That will come back to haunt them because if they don't have one going by 2014, the federal government will be setting one up to offer to their constituents. During the passage of ACA, there was a big argument over whether the exchanges should be set up in the 50 states or simply have one national exchange. Progressives favored the latter (even bigger pool and potentially lower rates) but that move was defeated. So those Republican governors would simply be promoting the progressive alternative by refusing to participate ;-)
So there you have a brief outline of just one very important aspect of ACA. I would venture to say that not many outside the political junkie class have any idea about it or the benefits it will afford to those who must purchase health insurance either individually or as a small group. But as VP Joe Biden said, to those of us in that situation, this really is a BFD!
The last thing is though I do not understand why the Obama administration does not want to make these points. it totally refutes what the American Taliban is propagandizing to the American public. Just like they beat down the public constantly w/ their lies the Dummycrats must do the same.
Thanks for re-posting that! When GOP governors say they are not going to set up exchanges, this is an example of what they're cutting their constituents off from.
Thank you. That is the most complete explanation of the exchanges that I have read to date. I have a much clearer understanding of what they would mean and how they will work. It makes so much sense. I wish there was a way to distill it down for general consumption ----- "explain it to me like I'm a 6-year-old."
Thank you very educational.
Thank you. So page 81,sec. 1312 will give us the opportunity to see what kind of a sweet insurance deal our Senators and Congress men are receiving (for life) and we peons will have the opportunity to obtain the same. Great! Very informative.
So we've finally found the real "death panels", and they're presided over by Mitch McConnell.
I don't understand why Democrats don't jump all over McConnell's comment. Where is Debbie Whatshername Shultz? How about Ed Rendell? Joe Biden? This is a slow hanging breaking pitch right down the middle. Don't flinch. Crush it.
They don't want to hurt their feelings , they are very sensitive dontchknow. Why John Boehner might cry .
Mitch McConnell is nothing more than a filthy Republican Pig. The world will be far better after you are dead and gone, you FILTH.
This has allways been my point , America has been ran by 300 Radicals for the last 60 years rather than Good , Honest, Christian People , the kind that originally started this country . How did they get into office anyway , they basically need to be De- Programed in a mental institution .
does that mean that if someone isnt Christian they are bad, lying people and shouldnt run the country? This country is run and is populated by all faiths not just yours.
Erned the right to medical care ? How would a 5 year old reach that Achievement ??.
I am tired of hearing from Teapublicans that health insurance is not a right like freedom of speech is a right. And they are correct in that health insurance per se is not written in the constritution for every citizen as a right. But it is a responsibility. And each person is repsonsible for it which the ACA does as well as WE THE PEOPLE. This does not change the basic fact that you cannot afford HEALTHCARE unless you have health insurance. Which means healthcare and health insurance are the same thing. The conservative right believes that healthcare is a privilege and if millions of Americans cannot afford it then well, they simply have not earned it. Now mind you, they fall back on the "it's not a right BS" to somehow clear their conscience. It is clearly one of the most disgusting notions ever put forth by the right. I think these folks need to read the Constitiuion a bit more closely. Specifically, Section I Article 8 which states "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States..." Guessing they forget that the United States is "WE THE PEOPLE" and the Congress has the power to PROVIDE general welfare. Not welfare as we refer to it today as in the form of food stamps and public assistance monies, but the Oxford English Dictionary defintion which the Founders would have referenced:
"the health, happiness, and fortunes of a person or group" (emphasis added)
See that first word there? Yup, you got it. HEALTH. It is not a right of the people, it is the responsibility of WE THE PEOPLE, our elected officials and each other to provide for our well being. How is this so difficult for people to understand?
They need to be reminded that healthcare, when the constitution was written, was non-existant by todays standard. Had the founding fathers known the advancement in science and technology that was to come, THE RIGHT TO MEDICAL CARE would have been the 11th amendment. In those days being a doctor was a calling...in modern medicine it's a stack of Ben Franklins calling. In those days doctors got payed in kind( thanks for fixen my leg doc..heres 3 chickens and a bushell of squash), today between the doc, and insurance, and hospital administration if they leave you flat broke and homeless, they feel like it's a job well done. Whats needed is a CONSTITUTIONAL AMMENDMENT... the right to health care.
Beautifully said! Thank you.
I hope he looses his pants and shorts in the same day.
Isn't what's offered in the ACA the same or very similar to the health insurance our Congress gets?? If it is, why is it okie dokie for McConnell & the rest of 'em, but not for us?? That man makes me wanna puke!
As much as I despise all things Fox, I give credit to Wallace for not letting that slug slime his way off the hook. It is quite literally incomprehensible to me that anyone could watch that piece and think, "Yes, clearly my party (the Reps) have a definitive way to fix health care in America."
This should be a HUGE boon to the President. Let's hope Dems stay on message for once and hammer it home until November.
p.s. You can tell when you're getting at the truth when the politician stops, offers a weak grin and, with an attitude that says YOU'RE being impolite says ,"I'll get to it (your question) in a minute." Check the 54 second mark.