A Fox News host this week dismissed concerns over millions of people losing healthcare under the Republican plan because “we’re all gonna die.”
Lisa Kennedy Montgomery made the cheap quip on air following a segment that featured statements by Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, framed by a chyron that blasted Democratic politicians for their “outrageous rhetoric on healthcare.”
“Thousands of people, Bernie Sanders says, Pelosi says hundreds of thousands. Kennedy, Schumer say one to two thousand…,” host Eric Bolling said of the lawmakers’ varied statistics during a panel discussion on Senate GOP leaders’ decision to delay a vote on their healthcare bill.
“You know what, at least they are not employing any hyperbole at all. No exaggeration, no hysteria,” she responded. “You know what the crazy thing is? We’re all going to die. And they can’t predict—there’s no way unless they are absolutely psychic and have a party line to heaven, they don’t know who’s going to die or when or how many people.”
Over recent decades, multiple studies have pointed to the fact that better access to healthcare and treatment has been reflected in a decline in death rates. An academic analysis offered by the New England Journal of Medicine found that “the largest decreases were for deaths from ‘health-care-amenable’ conditions such as heart disease, infections, and cancer, which are more plausibly affected by access to medical care.”
A study released this week concluded that expanded access to healthcare under the Affordable Care Act (known as ACA or Obamacare) led to an “extraordinary reduction” in deaths caused by cardiac arrest in Oregon.
Dubbed the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA), the Republican bill will repeal and replace select portions of the ACA. One of the most notable changes involves large gradual cuts to Medicaid, which covers tens of millions of people across the U.S. The Congressional Budget Office estimates 22 million fewer people will have health insurance as a result of the Republican plan.
Sensational commentary such as Montgomery’s, however, drags debate and conversation to a new low.
H/T Think Progress
