Sen. Angus King: Far-Right Obamacare Opponents Are "Guilty of Murder"'
Sen. Angus King (I-ME) has some harsh words for those who would tell young people that a political principle is more important than having health insurance.
“That’s a scandal—those people are guilty of murder in my opinion,” Sen. Angus King, a Maine Independent who caucuses with Democrats, told me in a Friday interview. “Some of those people they persuade are going to end up dying because they don’t have health insurance. For people who do that to other people in the name of some obscure political ideology is one of the grossest violations of our humanity I can think of. This absolutely drives me crazy.”
King speaks from experience.
Forty years ago, when King was 29 years old, he was provided health insurance as a staffer for then-Sen. Bill Hathaway, D-Maine, and for the first time in a decade went to a clinic for a checkup.“I had a health policy that included in it a free annual physical as a part of the policy and they had evening clinic hours. And I wouldn’t have taken the day off — and if that hadn’t been covered under the insurance there’s no doubt in my mind that I wouldn’t have gone to have the checkup,” King said.
“It was a routine checkup and the doctor found this mole, and I went in a week later to have the stitches out. The doctor told me I’d better sit down and that I had melanoma…. A month later I found myself having every cancer test you could imagine. Ultimately I had a fairly major surgery. The point of the story is that without the surgery I would have died.”
You know that none of the guys at Heritage Action or FreedomWorks would tell their own children to go without health insurance. They know as well as Sen. King that it's foolish to go without that protection when you can afford otherwise. But. They. Don't. Care.
As far as they're concerned, the people they're telling to burn their fake Obamacare cards could live or die. It doesn't really matter. They're not likely to be voting Republican any time soon. That's why they don't particularly care about the people who they would allow to go hungry with their massive food stamp cuts. They're not voters. And they sure won't be campaign contributors. As far as Republicans are concerned, most of America is expendable.
