Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell made an appearance yesterday on Fox New Sunday. The host, Chris Wallace, pressed him repeatedly to explain what the Republicans would do for the 30 million Americans who will lose their access to health care insurance if the Republicans repeal the American Care Act. McConnell hemmed and hawed, before flatly asserting that the 30 million uninsured “are not the issue.” Greg Sargent covers it here:
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. He repeated the debunked claim that it would cut $500 billion from Medicare. 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.”
It seems to me that this is a pretty good corollary of how the Republicans explain the salutary effects of massive tax cuts for the most affluent. Just replace every “uninsured American” with a hundred bucks of deficit. The argument goes something like this:
“How is Mitt Romney (or Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush) going to pay for these massive tax cuts that experts say will add $900 billion to the deficit in 2015 alone?
“Well, the Democrats spend too much money. And we’ll repeal ObamaCare, revamp Medicare, and close some tax loopholes.”
“But that won’t save you more than $500 billion. At current projections, Romney would still run a $1.5 trillion deficit in 2015, and as far as the eye can see.”
“(Laughs) Well, I’ll get that to in a minute. The most important thing is to free up the job creators by letting them keep more of their money and getting the government off their back with all these regulations.”
“Running $1.5 trillion in annual deficits isn’t exactly solving the debt problem. And doing it by slashing Medicare benefits while giving a $250,000 annual tax break to millionaires strikes most people as unfair.”
“Those projections don’t take into account the magic of increased economic growth. You can’t believe those projections. Once we free up the economy for growth, the deficits will come down.”
“That didn’t happen under Reagan and it didn’t happen under Bush. It’s not what the experts say will happen. They say these policies will hurt programs for the poor and elderly while massively increasing the debt.”
“The poor and the elderly are not the issue.”
Or, in Mitt Romney’s words, “I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I’ll fix it.”
But Romney will fix it by voucherizing Medicare which would create savings for the government by reducing benefits for the elderly.
What a tangled web you weave when first you practice to deceive.
