The Nebraska Democratic Party has removed a party official after he was recorded saying he was glad House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) was shot, according to a Fox News affiliate.
“His whole job is to get people, convince Republicans to fucking kick people off fucking health care,” Phil Montag, a technology chairman with the state Democratic Party, said in the verified audio recording. “I hate this motherfucker, I’m glad he got shot.”
“I’m glad he got shot, I’m not going to fucking say that in public,” Montag added. An unidentified male later says he would release the recording publicly.
Scalise was among four people shot last week during baseball practice in Alexandria, Virginia, one day before the annual Congressional Baseball Game. James Hodgkinson, a man who supported far-left political stances on social media, shot the congressman before U.S. Capitol Police officers shot and killed him. Scalise, who was shot in the hip, has undergone several rounds of surgery and as of Friday, is out of the intensive care unit, sources told NBC News.
Montag’s words clearly violate basic standards of decency, something the Nebraska Democratic Party recognized when they immediately removed him from his post. But they also undermine the moral case for the cause he purportedly feels so passionate about — the preservation of Obamacare.
What’s lost in the outrage over Montag’s outrageous comments is that Republicans are in fact trying to “kick people off fucking health care” by treating their health care plan — more commonly known as Trumpcare — as a win-or-lose scenario against Democrats. In fact, there is a lot of reason for Americans to be angry over the Republican health care plan.
Over the past few months, Republicans have said they would “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act, more commonly known as Obamacare. But Republican leaders have also failed to treat health care as more than just political posturing. House Republicans have failed to hold meetings on the bill. And Senate Republicans have kept Americans in the dark about the contents of a health care bill that was intentionally kept secret and publicly released Thursday. The Senate may vote on the bill as early as next week.
Republican congressional members do not show up for town halls. And Republican congressional candidates have gone so far as to ignore or even “bodyslam” journalists. Most recently, one congressional member said he wouldn’t hold town halls because of “people screaming.”
In its first version, the Trump administration’s budget proposal to make massive cuts to Medicaid could cut off a lifeline for 14 million low-income people, the Congressional Budget Office estimated. Subsequent versions have big impacts on millions of people, with the CBO estimating anywhere between 24 million and 26 million people could lose health insurance over the next ten years. According to ThinkProgress estimates based on the House Republican health care bill released in March, roughly 17,000 people could die next year if Trumpcare goes into effect.
Beyond Montag’s very harsh and unnecessary comments about Scalise, this point stands: medically fragile lives are at risk without health insurance coverage. The Affordable Care Act includes provisions that could mean life or death for certain segments of the population at fatal risk if Republicans pull those features of Obamacare.
Just a brief survey of the internet finds that some Americans could die without health care. That has led regular Americans to become their own biggest advocates. Because Trumpcare could cap and cut Medicaid, it would seriously hurt Americans with disabilities, which is why activists in wheelchairs showed up to protest outside Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office on Thursday.
Others who would be adversely impacted without crucial provisions under Obamacare include six-year-old Timmy Morrison, a cute toothy kid with a rare genetic disease who may have died without Obamacare’s ban on lifetime coverage limits. Prior to Obamacare, a lot of health insurance plans like Timmy’s had lifetime coverage limits of $1 million, the amount any one person can spend on medical care through their coverage. Timmy spent $2 million for his first hospital stay.