Gobbledygook
by digby
Kevin McCarthy explaining the health care plan yesterday. Basically, if you don’t like what we’re doing blame Obama.
BASH: But, I mean, you’re making a pretty big statement. You’re saying it’s solving the problem, which means that you, your colleagues, your Republican president, you own this. So if at the end of the day this process doesn’t bring the insurers back to Iowa and to other areas that don’t have it and to decrease premiums, decrease costs, it’s on you.
MCCARTHY: Well, the one thing we do know, Obamacare has failed. So what do we say to the people in Iowa? What do we say to the people in Tennessee? What do we say to the people in Virginia? We know Obamacare has failed. So as statesmen, do we just sit back and say, I told you so, or do we find a solution to the problem? I think as statesmen on both sides of the aisle, people should come forward with their ideas to solve the problem. If the Democrats are arguing nothing should happen, I want them to look in the eyes of those people and those counties, or what about the 23 co-ops that were given more than $2 billion? What about the collapse of 19 of those? Where are they defending that? Where are they helping those people with health care? Some —
BASH: Well they argue — I mean because they’re not here to defend themselves — they argue Obamacare is not perfect, but the answer is not to completely repeal it, it’s to try to fix it and to work together to do that.
MCCARTHY: It’s far from perfect. We found you have less options, you have no health care. How are you going to pay for Medicaid? We just passed an omni (ph) yesterday. It was roughly a trillion dollars.
BASH: A budget bill.
MCCARTHY: A budget bill, to pay for all discretionary funding of government. A trillion dollars. Well, you know what, in less than ten years, just Medicaid will cost us $1 trillion. So where’s the solution for that? Where’s the solution for funding of our government and (INAUDIBLE). We are taking a forward look. We’re repealing it, the posing of all those taxes. We’re replacing it, giving people an option to actually go into the market to choose and have the free market actually push prices down, which we show premiums will come down, and provide health care for all those counties that have now lost it because of Obamacare.
BASH: Let me ask you another piece of substance of this. Under this plan —
MCCARTHY: Yes.
BASH: Is there a chance that people who get health coverage through their employers could lose protections that limit out of pocket costs in a case of catastrophic illness?
MCCARTHY: No, because this deals nothing — this is at the individual market. If you’re getting your health care, if you have Medicare, you’re getting your health care from your business or others, this doesn’t deal with it. You know what else it does do?
BASH: Are — I just want to ask you just — are you sure because there’s a report “The Wall Street Journal” is reporting that there’s a loophole in the fine print that would allow just that.
MCCARTHY: (INAUDIBLE) —
BASH: Are you telling me you are confident that is not true?
MCCARTHY: We are confident when we went through the amendments. The one thing I will tell you as well, when you look at what Obamacare has done, even to the business climate, that so many people now, because of the 30 hour workweek, or just the 50 employees, so many small businesses that people are now having to work two part-time jobs because they can’t add people to the work, they can’t continue to expand. This is going to change from business to health care and help move the economy.
If somebody has a better idea, this is the legislative process. We’re moving it through the House. The Senate is a legislative body. They will be able to do what they want with the bill and then we can go to conference. So if there’s any other ideas that people have, bring it forward because the one thing we do know, day after day, more insurers are pulling out of the market so fewer people are having health care because Obamacare continues to survive.
BASH: Now, a lot of Democrats are — think that they’re kind of whistling past the graveyard here saying uh-oh, this is the same kind of vote that cost so many of my colleagues their seats on the gun issue, on the budget issue back in the ’90s. Are you confident you’re not making your members take a vote that will make them lose their seats and maybe even you lose the majority leader status?
MCCARTHY: Well, every vote that you just said the Democrats took, took more power — gave more power to government and took more freedom away from people. We are giving people actual freedom.
And remember this, more people took the option and paid the penalty than signed up for Obamacare. So you have people pulling out of health care that don’t have any health care now in county. More people taking the option and penalty than signed up for it. And the Democrats continue to take more freedom away. This bill provides more freedom to the individual, more choice and more opportunity.
This is one of the most powerful leaders in the Republican Party.
On the other hand, their leader is Donald Trump so …
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