During an appearance on ABC’s This Week, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan insisted that people with pre-existing conditions won’t be denied the right to buy health insurance. But that’s never been the issue – the issue is affordability, which Ryan has taken away from these people by removing their subsidies. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses this.
Transcript of the above video:
After passage of the American Healthcare Act this past week, Paul Ryan appeared on ABC’s This Week to talk with George Stephanopoulos about how great this piece of legislation that he’s been pumping for seven years. How great this legislation is. And, according to Paul Ryan, according to what he told George Stephanopoulos, nobody’s going to be denied the right to buy health insurance if you have a preexisting condition. Isn’t that wonderful, folks? Unfortunately, for Paul Ryan, that never really was the issue. The issue wasn’t whether or not you would take away the preexisting condition coverage. We knew you wouldn’t touch that because that really would be political suicide, possibly even worse, but you left it in there. Good for you. Now these people can buy health insurance with the subsidies … Oh, wait, you took those away. You’re taking away their right, their ability to buy health insurance coverage if they have a preexisting condition.
I saw a phenomenal tweet from a democratic senator this past weekend. Excuse me, I forgot his name. He said, “I have the right to go buy an island in the Caribbean. That doesn’t mean I can afford it.” That’s exactly the situation here. Paul Ryan is trying to misdirect the public and say that people with preexisting conditions can absolutely buy healthcare, we just have no idea how they’re going to be able to afford it. We’ve shipped all of our jobs overseas. We’re automating. You know? We have less need for American workers so people are making less money. Rather than the government stepping in, providing the subsidies that they had been providing, by putting a tax on 400 families in the United States, which was more than enough to cover it. Instead, Republicans have used this entire American Healthcare Act as a tax giveaway for the wealthy.
That is all this is. That is all Paul Ryan ever wanted to do was give his donors, give his backers, and give his fellow republicans in the House and Senate, and governor houses all over the country, give them a tax break. Hell, I guarantee that Paul Ryan probably qualifies for it himself. That’s all this was about. This wasn’t about keeping preexisting coverage or making, as they call it, a patient-centered program, which literally means nothing. It was about giving them that tax break. Yes, poor people who are sick, you can still go buy your health insurance. Maybe you have to take out some loans. Maybe you got to go to one of those predatory payday lending places, but you can damn sure buy it. You won’t be denied. That is the republican promise. The rest of it is on you.
Maybe you’re going to have to take a second or third job, maybe you’re going to have to get a second mortgage on your house that you already can’t afford. Maybe you’re going to have to sell your car, sell some of your belongings, cash in your pension early, but don’t worry, as soon as you find a way to come up with those astronomical prices for your health insurance, you’ll absolutely be able to buy it thanks to Paul Ryan.
