USADaily -
The chief architect of TrumpCare is Republican Congressman Tom MacArthur (R-NJ).
His legislation, passed by the US House yesterday, could cost 24 million Americans their health insurance, increase premiums on healthy people age 50-64 by 66%, worsen plans for people who get their insurance through their employer, and relegate people with pre-existing conditions to insurance ghettos where their premiums will skyrocket while their benefits will plummet.
So it was horrifying to read this morning, in an article by Tom Moran of the Star Ledger, that MacArthur is intimately familiar with the terror of pre-existing conditions and exorbitant medical costs. His daughter died when she was 11, leaving him with $1m in medical bills. MacArthur’s mom also died of cancer when he was four. His father had no insurance, and had to work three jobs for two decades to pay off the bills, and still couldn’t do it on his own.
You’d think after all of that, MacArthur wouldn’t just understand how ruthless the free market is to people with pre-existing conditions, but he certainly wouldn’t lead the charge to make it more likely for more families to go through what his family went through twice.
You’d be wrong.
Moran has more:
But MacArthur defended his role on Thursday, sending out an e-mail blast that mentioned his daughter’s passing, and his mother’s cancer. He seems to think it offers some inoculation against charges that he’s a heartless guy who has never known hardship.
To me, the mystery is how he, of all people, could pull this trigger. Jimmy Kimmel just had a terrifying scare with his newborn, and he drew the reasonable conclusion: Everyone should have health care. Period.
I can’t gin up any real hostility towards MacArthur. He in my sad club, the worst one on earth. But if I lived in his district, he most definitely would not get my vote in 2018.
No, Mr. MacArthur, your daughter’s death and your mother’s cancer and your father’s hardship paying for her bills do not provide you a get-out-of-jail-free card for threatening my health coverage, and the coverage of 24 million other Americans. If anything, it shows that you of all people should understand this issue. And you don’t.
Or you do understand it, and you just don’t care.
See you in November, 2018.
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