Jessica McBride: "Poor people do not deserve healthcare."
Here is the money quote from her opinion piece on the Senate health plan:(Healthy WI) ...would give everyone in the state health care like that enjoyed by the legislators and the governor. Why should a $7-an-hour worker get benefits the same as the governor?Tell me if there is a different way to interpret that statement?
Thank you, Jessica, for the clear window into the Republican soul (or lack thereof...).
Thursday, July 5, 2007
'Poor don't deserve health care'
Jef Hall nails it:
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I hope someone saved a McBride column from a few years when WisPolitics.com was running comment from a few writers.
ReplyDeleteBefore blogs got popular.
I remember seeing a McBride story that I can't locate in the WisPolitics archive (maybe I need a paid subscription - - little help, out there, you rich lobbyists and political junkies/) where McBride was complaining about how badly she and her husband were getting paid on the public dole (his AG package, her teaching gig).
Of course, public employes in Wisconsin get great benefits, including a health plan that is conservatively worth $1,500-$2,000 a month for families.
But she doesn't think the working poor deserve what she and her husband got, and which she could continue to take?
This is standard Republican elitism, and selfishness, and interestingly enough, this is the mentality that will kill a reasonable discussion of health care reform in the Capitol.
This is a clear window into J McB's soul - don't label it Republican without interviewing all of us.
ReplyDeleteI'd love to see some known Republicans openly confront that thinking.
ReplyDeleteAgreed that her comments here are egregious -- but first anonymous, you may not have kept up with what has happened to the state employee health plan in the last few years, at least for UW employees and specifically in Milwaukee. The rates are "tiered" now and much higher for the UWM campus than any other campus, and the employee contribution is a lot more than it was. (It wiped out "cost of living" increases aka raises, such as they were, for a lot of state employees on the UWM campus, and maybe for other state employees not so privileged as to be in Madison -- the lowest-rate tier, of course.)
ReplyDeleteThat said, even the $7 an hour employees at UWM have got a plan as good as the governor's, and that's good. Everyone should.
Jessica's been down this path before.
ReplyDeleteFrom a Jan. 4 2007 post by yours truly:
Jessica McBride is angry about how those durn Democrats want everyone to have health insurance.
Including, you know, kids.:
Last night, a caller stated that he predicts health care costs will remain the number 1 challenge of local and state government. And I said, yes, that's true. Except the Democrats are more concerned with giving everyone healthcare, i.e. expanding coverage, rather than dealing with rising costs, which means they will actually make us all pay more for health care next year. That, I said, is their priority and agenda.
Didn't take them long:
Madison - In the first public speech of his second term, Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle said "much more remains to be done for the hard-working families of Wisconsin," including making sure every child has health care...
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Great way to deal with spiraling health care costs, heh?
By the way, don't we have a $2.1 billion budget deficit? Maybe Doyle could have spent some of his time coming up with a plan to deal with that, not spend more.
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You know, if the state would only be less queasy about sick kids we could save ourselves some serious coin!
And could someone tell Jessica that the reason health care costs are so high is not because too many people have coverage but because of the byzantine and inefficient structure of the American health care "system"? -- something which bold Repub initiatives such as "transparency" or HSAs will not solve (anymore than vouchers will fix education)? Someone?
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Damn those Dems for trying to bring health care to everyone.
Your Buddy,
Brew City Brawler
This is off the topic, a bit, but to the anon. who was complaining about the health care cost at UW-M: What are the costs, per person or family? I'll bet it's still a nice benefit. Ask people without health care coverage, period, or people in private sector plans with whopping co-pays, deductibles, and premiums.
ReplyDelete