Nobody believes this sudden GOP conversion to “protect pre-existing conditions”
by digby
These Republicans arguing that they will protect the people with pre-existing conditions are so confused by it that they don’t even know how to defend the position.
“A former Republican congressman from Georgia, Jack Kingston, debated health care policy with Dr. Zeke Emanuel, a former White House advisor to President Barack Obama. What’s the evidence that Republicans will totally protect people with preexisting conditions?” anchor Victor Blackwell asked Kingston.
Kingston claimed that pre-existing condition coverage would still exist, but admitted that, “the premium might not be where it is now”
“If they can’t afford it, then it’s not coverage,” Blackwell noted.
“They’re not going to say you don’t insure people, they’re going to say, ‘insurance companies charge them whatever you want’ and that is what the president has made his Department of Health and Human Services do — giving states waivers to allow insurance companies to charge people with preexisting conditions tens of thousands off dollars for their insurance,” Dr. Emanuel explained. “That makes it unaffordable.”
Having failed on the pre-existing conditions argument, Kingston pivoted to labeling ObamaCare “quasi-socialist” while complaining about the profits of insurance companies.
“What I would like to point out is you can’t both say it’s socialized medicine and the insurance companies are doing well,” Dr. Emanuel noted.
“That is a lie that you keep perpetuating,” he argued.
This was a weird stand for them to take. EVERYONE in the country knows that they voted repeatedly to repeal the ACA. And the vast majority, especially the base of the GOP which made that repeal their Holy Grail for almost a decade, understand that the GOP has never, ever said this before. It was never part of their agenda to “protect pre-existing conditions” and they only ever offered some vague nonsense about allowing insurance companies to sell across state lines.
I don’t think this is fooling anyone. And when their surrogates fail this spectacularly, I think we can rest assured that the only people who are buying this line are the cultists who aren’t concerned with details about anything. And maybe a few poor people who are sick but love Donald Trump and just want to believe he wouldn’t do that to them. But, of course, he would. He was desperate to repeal Obamacare and they had absolutely nothing in the hopper to replace it after years and years of ranting and raving about it.
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