Former Republican Senator Jim DeMint (S.C.) announced on CNN’s State of the Union Sunday that national health care can’t provide good health care. This is his big argument against ObamaCare.
A pause while this sinks in and fills all of the outrageous holes…
I guess he’s right: Medicare, the Military Health System and TRICARE are a big fail. Will Republicans next winning strategy be publicly admitting that their raison d’être is defunding Medicare and taking health insurance away from our troops and their families?
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DeMint’s argument is that federal healthcare is bad, “I can speak for the millions of conservatives across the country that know that this is not going to help the uninsured in America, it’s going to diminish the quality of healthcare for all Americans, and we see that in every country around the world where national healthcare has been instituted.”
Certainly the former Senator takes advantage of the federal healthcare plan he gets for the rest of his life, courtesy of the taxpayers he is trying to screw over. He doesn’t seem to think that’s too shabby, and he’s not yet suggesting that we take federal healthcare away from the military (is DeMint arguing that our troops are deserving of bad healthcare?). Just the other Americans…
DeMint is pushing for a shut down of the government in order to defund healthcare for Americans, claiming Obamacare is “unfair”. Ah, so that’s why it’s okay to be against law and order. It’s unfair.
The bottom line is that Jim DeMint and the GOP think that if your kid has cancer, you shouldn’t care that you don’t have the money to pay for treatment. It’s much more important for you to help them get Obama back for winning yet another election.
Using your cred as a federal employee while making the big bucks via big business is a great gig. It works like this: DeMint is now the President of conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation. The Heritage Foundation’s activist arm Heritage Action is putting on anti-ObamaCare townhalls across the nation.
Why? Because a health insurance mandate is such a terrible, horrible, rotten, Socialist idea.
If only the idea weren’t based on a 1989 proposal by Stuart M. Butler at Heritage called, “Assuring Affordable Health Care for All Americans” — which included a provision to “mandate all households to obtain adequate insurance”.
Before you lose your mind over that glaring hypocrisy, two other Republicans, Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Charles Grassley (R-IA) also introduced healthcare laws with an individual mandate. But now they are vewy, vewy opposed because – OBAMA. Republicans now claim that the individual mandate is “unconstitutional.”
Jim DeMint also issued his corporate masters’ big threat, saying that Republicans who are unwilling to shut down the government should be “replaced.”
According to Right Wing Watch, “The Heritage Foundation owes much of its success to savvy marketing and PR and the generous donations of right-wing benefactors, foundations and wealthy corporations. The foundation boasts about its influence on Capitol Hill yet insists that it does not ‘lobby.'”
DeMint’s talking points are a big fail. According to an August report by the Department of Health and Human Services, Medicare beneficiary access to care is high and has remained stable over the past five years, and the number of physicians accepting Medicare is slightly higher in recent years than those taking private insurance:
According to federal survey data, the percentage of all office-based physicians who report accepting new Medicare patients has not changed significantly between 2005 and 2012, with 87.9% of physicians accepting new Medicare patients in 2005 and 90.7% in 2012.
– The percentage of physicians who report accepting new Medicare patients is similar to, and in recent years slightly higher than, the percentage accepting new privately insured patients.
– Medicare beneficiary access to care is high and has remained stable over the past five years.
Republicans never had a “replace” for ObamaCare, and now they’re stuck arguing that Americans should support them when they defund the government because healthcare for everyone is unfair.
If that doesn’t get you to see things their way, how about the idea that Medicare is a big failure and should be defunded, along with all unfair, bad federal healthcare programs?
Goodbye Military Health System and TRICARE, Republicans think you’re not fair and don’t work. Everyone will be much better off with GOPNoCare.
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