Photo by Dorothea Lange

From NPR

All Things Considered

On the first day of this Congress, Rep. Steve King of Iowa introduced a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act in its entirety.

You can read it here: Repeal Obamacare

Its author was interviewed this evening.

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

Donald Trump said this yesterday about repealing and replacing Obamacare. As soon as his nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services is confirmed, he said his administration will submit a plan to replace the law. He said it will be repeal and replace. It'll be done, in Trump's words, essentially simultaneously.

Republican Congressman Steve King of Iowa isn't waiting. King is a staunch conservative, and as soon as Congress convened, he proposed a repeal bill. I asked him why.

STEVE KING: It's my opinion that if we repealed Obamacare and did nothing, we're still far better off. Almost everybody I know would be happier if Obamacare had never been passed and we hadn't made any changes in health care.

(snip)

Diarist’s Note: Rep. King did not identify those “everybodys” in the section I have deleted to comply with Fair Use rules. In any event, other than insurance company CEOs and the billionaires who would see substantial tax cuts from the repeal, this is nothing but GOP hobgoblinery.

Continued:

SIEGEL: Donald Trump's adviser Kellyanne Conway recently told an interviewer, we don't want anyone who currently has insurance to not have insurance.

Diarist’s Note: Until the last Dalmatian puppy has not been made into a coat, sure, Kellyanne, we’ll take you at your word.

(snip)

KING: I think that's a fine and shining ideal, but it wouldn't be my standard. We have about 20 million people that they say would be pushed off of Obamacare if we just repealed it and did nothing. I look at the numbers on the 20 million. It's about 10.8 million that were pushed onto Medicaid, and so I don't really look at Medicaid as a health insurance policy that you own.

Diarist’s Note: “Pushed” onto Medicaid? I’m fairly certain that those who benefitted from the expansion of Medicaid were incredibly grateful to have the chance to see a doctor, obtain screenings and obtain basic healthcare. According to Rep. King, though, they should just go back to waiting, worrying and emergency rooms.

KING: I would argue there is no constitutional - you have no right to a health insurance policy. Whatever our hearts tell us, we can provide those things, but there's not a right to them.

Diarist’s Note: Medicaid is not a “health insurance policy.” It’s a plan to ensure that the richest country in the history of earth enables its less well-off citizens to obtain necessary healthcare. It’s part of the social contract, and there is no reason we cannot make this universal. Many less rich countries already have done this.

More from Rep. King:

The roughly 9.2 million people that are insured under Obamacare that would presumably lose their insurance if it were repealed - they're living under a subsidized premium, and that subsidized premium is paid for almost a hundred percent by the taxpayers.

Diarist’s Note: As explained in a diary published earlier today by our own incredible Brainwrap: If you receive your healthcare policy from your employer, you're receiving an average of around $1,730 per year in tax subsidies, or around $144 per month. So those who would lose their insurance after a repeal would still be subsidizing those of us who got to keep ours because we work for employers who provide it. Read More Here

Rep. King’s plans?

KING: So we can do some things like a full deductibility of everybody's health insurance premium.

Diarist’s Note: Great idea for people whose premiums exceed their take-home pay!

KING: That picks up some of them in that 9.2 million group. Under Obamacare, they always envisioned that 4 percent of the population would be uninsured even if it were fully implemented. So I wouldn't want to be bogged down on that, but I would want to do the best thing we can for the maximum number of American people.

Diarist’s Note: Yes, let’s not get “bogged down.” And, oh by the way, the “maximum number of American people” would truly like to keep whatever access they have to health care, including the benefits provided to them by the ACA.

(snip)

SIEGEL: Should insurance companies be required to offer insurance to people regardless of a prior condition? Should that provision of Obamacare survive, whatever the Congress does?

KING: (snip) If we guarantee people that we will - that there will be a policy issued to them regardless of them not taking the responsibility to buy insurance before they were sick, that's the equivalent of waiting for your house is on fire and then buying property and casualty insurance. And that defeats the insurance concept of it, and it defeats the personal responsibility requirements necessary to have an efficient health care system.

Diarist’s Note: This will be of great comfort to my niece, who was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when she was 16 months old. I guess it is too bad that at that time, before she could read or write, and when she was in the ICU fighting for her life, she didn’t find some insurance plan that wouldn’t later deny her insurance for a pre-existing condition.

SIEGEL: Do you sense that there's a majority in the House, that the overwhelming majority of the Republican caucus is with you on what should replace Obamacare? Or are there still arguments to be had and debates to be had about what happens after Obamacare?

KING: Let me go out on a limb here, Robert. I think most of the Republicans agree with me, but there's probably a majority of them that don't have the political will because they're afraid of the criticism that will come. And as I listen to their dialogue, they're afraid of the criticism.

(snip)

But I think if you take them down to where their heart of hearts is and their logical brain is, the majority of them will agree with me.