Rep. Webster Tells Town Hall Constituents That If Health Reform Isn?t Repealed, ?We Won?t Have A Country?
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on May 22nd, 2011 4:35 am by HL
ThinkProgress filed this report from a town hall meeting in Astatula, FL.
When Congress passed the landmark health reform law last March, Republicans predicted the result wouldn’t be insurance for 32 million Americans, but rather “Armageddon.”
More than a year later, such outlandish rhetoric continues unabated.
This week, Rep. Daniel Webster (R-FL) met with constituents for a town hall meeting in Astatula, FL. During the event, a constituent asked Webster about how repealing health reform would affect citizens like her who have cancer (or other preexisting conditions) and found it next to impossible to get insurance in the private market. Webster agreed with the constituent that – despite his voting to strip such protections in January – preexisting conditions ought to be covered by insurance. However, Webster then went on to tell the audience that unless the health reform law, which covers preexisting conditions, is repealed, “we won’t have a country” anymore:
CONSTITUENT: All the years that your party has had to work on this, you still don’t have an answer for people like me, if I have a cancer recurrence before I’m eligible for Medicare, what’s your answer for people like me? You’ve been working on it year after year after year, and you never have an answer. I’m sorry, but it’s unacceptable to find out that there’s a clinic someplace that serves primary care to Medicare or Medicaid patients, when I want to know who serves cancer care to people with preexisting conditions who are uninsurable in a private marketplace because they’re interested in profits.
WEBSTER: Thank you for that question and I’ll answer it. Here’s how I’ll answer you first. I got to Congress here. [Points to January 2011] […] I’ve told you, first of all, that I believe there is a need to have preexisting conditions covered. I’ve said that. So I’m not trying to eliminate that at all, and that would be the answer to your question. All I’m saying is, left to the community and the states and having partnerships will free us from this. [Points to debt chart] We can’t afford it. We can either do it on borrowed money and run our country into the ground and then no one gets coverage because we won’t have a country.
Watch it:
Still, Webster isn’t the only one predicting dire consequences for our country as a result of health reform. Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) surmised that “a lot of people are going to die,” while Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) recently said that if you believe in a right to health care, “you believe in slavery.” Last year, then-House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) even called the law “Armageddon” that will “ruin our country.”
Listening to such over-the-top rhetoric, one can certainly be forgiven for believing that the rapture is indeed nigh.
Back To The Future: ?Death Panel? Myth Invoked At GOP Town Hall To Scare Voters
ThinkProgress filed this report from Manilus, NY
Facing increasing backlash at home, House Republicans are tap-dancing around — and away — from House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) deeply unpopular plan to end Medicare. But in struggling to justify their overwhelming support for a plan that drastically raises health care costs for seniors, Republicans are now blaming Democrats for employing “political rhetoric” and “Mediscare” tactics to purposefully frighten seniors about the GOP plan.
Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle (R-NY) tried that trick during her town hall meeting on Wednesday in Manilus, NY. Facing a crowd of seniors peppered with “Hands Off My Medicare” signs, Buerkle decried “despicable” attempts by Democrats “to frighten seniors into thinking that [the Ryan plan] is going to take away their Medicare.” Insisting that the plan is in no way a voucher system, Buerkle said, “I am disgusted by what has been said about this and the fear that has been instilled in some citizens.”
Her disgust, however, did not stop her from trying to fearmonger seniors herself. While simultaneously denouncing scare tactics, Buerkle pulled out the GOP’s trusty “death panel” myth — which earned the dubious distinction of Politifact’s “Lie of the Year” — and told her constituents that President Obama’s budget creates a panel that will determine what procedures a senior can have. Outraged at the allegation, her constituents yelled back, “that’s a lie” and noted, “you’re scaring seniors with that”:
BUERKLE: The other thing you don’t hear very often is the fact that the health care bill cut Medicare by $500 billion dollars. It has a real detrimental effect on seniors. And what the president is proposing in his budget, is a panel and they will look at — so if you have to have a procedure done, the panel will make a decision as to whether you can have it or …
CONSTITUENT 1: Death panel!
CONSTITUENT 2: No, no that’s not true. That’s false.
CONSTITUENT 3: You’re scaring seniors with that.
CONSTITUENT2: Yes you are.
BUERKLE: I’m answering this gentleman’s question.
Watch it:
The only panel in Obama’s budget proposal is the IPAB, a panel that has nothing to do with rationing care or making medical decisions for seniors. IPAB is a 15-member commission tasked with making recommendations for lowering Medicare spending if costs increase beyond a certain point — an idea previously supported by Ryan himself. According to law, the panel explicitly cannot “ration health care, raise revenues or Medicare beneficiary premiums…increase Medicare beneficiary cost-sharing (including deductibles, coinsurance, and co- payments), or otherwise restrict benefits or modify eligibility criteria.”
In conjuring the “death panel” myth, Buerkle is dramatically misinforming seniors while denying the very detrimental impact the GOP’s plan will have on them. Whatever standard for “despicable” she may have, it most certainly applies here.
