Monday, July 02, 2012

Mitch McConnell: Covering 30 Million Uninsured is "Not the Issue"

Yesterday Mitch McConnell pretty much exposed the lie that the GOP is the party of "family values."  The same goes for the GOP's supporters amongst the modern day Pharisee set generally labeled as "conservative Christians."   During an appearance on Fox News Sunday McConnell basically admitted that the GOP had no plan as to how to assure health care coverage to the 30 million who will gain coverage under the Affordable Healthcare Act.  Worse yet, he stated that covering such individual - which includes families and children - isn't an issue.  Sadly, McConnell and his party are more concerned about protecting pharmaceutical companies and the health care industry than needy Americans.  The later, in the GOP's eyes are disposable trash.  Here are highlights from a Washington Post column:

Mitch McConnell’s appearance today on Fox News Sunday was remarkably revealing — it showed as clearly as you could want that the Supreme Court decision is finally forcing Republicans to declare what, exactly, they would replace Obamacare with if they realize their goal of repealing it entirely.

Pressed by Chris Wallace to say what he would do to insure the 30 million people who will get insurance under Obamacare, McConnell at first dodged the question, instead launching into a litany of complaints about the law.  .  .  .  Asked the question again by Wallace, McConnell actually laughed, and said he’d “get to it in a minute,” before claiming the best thing we can do for the health system overall is to get rid of the law and all of its “cuts” to health providers. He labeled Obamacare a “monstrosity” and vowed that there would not be a “2,700 page” Republican reform bill.

Asked a third time how Republicans would insure those 30 million people, McConnell said: “That is not the issue. The question is how you can go step by step to improve the American health care system.”

[E]ven Wallace saw McConnell’s quote in far less charitable terms:
WALLACE: You don’t think the 30 million people who are uninsured is an issue?
MCCONNELL: Let me tell you what we’re not going to do. We’re not going to turn the American health care system into a western European system.
It’s worth pointing out that this is basically Mitt Romney’s position, too. The Romney campaign has acknowledged that he would not replace Obamacare with across-the-board protections for people with preexisting conditions. And the New York Times recently took a look at the alternatives Romney has proposed, and concluded that they would deemphasize the goal of “reducing the ranks of the uninsured.”

As the conversation turns to the specifics in the law, and to the fact that Republicans wouldn’t replace them with anything, Republicans’ best hope will be that the law’s generalized unpopularity will enable them to persuade the American people that the question of whose policies would actually cover the uninsured is “not the issue.”

The growing moral bankruptcy of the GOP will soon be challenging that of the Catholic Church hierarchy and the Vatican.

No comments: