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Republicans Just Proved ‘Right Wing Populism’ Is a Con Job


aubiefifty

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We’ve been hearing for years about how the U.S.’ two major political parties have realigned on economic issues, and the new breed of MAGA Republicans aren’t like the old corporate Reaganite Republicans. They’re “populists.” I’ve even heard the claim that, however conservative they may be on social issues, their economic views approximate those of democratic socialists like Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Now, the House just passed a measure to cap the price of insulin at $35 a month. And yet the loudest MAGA-ites all voted against HR 6833—the Affordable Insulin Now Act. Take a look at the roll call. Marjorie Taylor Greene voted “nay.” Madison Cawthorn and Lauren Boebert? Nay, nay. Paul Gosar, Louie Gohmert, and Matt Gaetz? Nay, nay, and nay.

You can argue that politicians of many different ideological hues are often corrupt (or simply insincere) and fail to live up to their crowd-pleasing rhetoric. And that’s true. But these are supposed to be the hardest core—the GOP’s equivalent of Bernie or the Squad. And they couldn’t even vote to throw the tiniest bone to suffering people at the expense of corporate profits. (37.3 million Americans, or one in every 10 Americans, has diabetes, according to the CDC.)

What the Left Keeps Getting Wrong About Free Speech

The idea that the price of insulin is just being capped—rather than made free to those who need it—says depressing things about the level of resistance to more meaningful reform among our political elites. Medicare for All is supported by well over half of the American public—and a “public option” in healthcare is backed by an even bigger majority. The insulin issue is a perfect demonstration of why these proposals resonate with so many people.

Try to imagine this happening in other scenarios.

Imagine that before the police investigated death threats from a stalker, you had to pay a fee at the Police Department’s reception desk. Or that when you stood on your front lawn watching your house burn down, the local fire captain approached you with a portable card reader so you could swipe or tap your debit card before he let his men take out their hoses and get to work. Would you be concerned with making these services more “affordable”—or would you regard the very idea that they would be treated as commodities as a moral abomination?

You can’t be denied entrance to an emergency room because of your inability to pay. (You’ll just be bankrupted by the bill if you live.) You can, however, be denied life-saving insulin.

As of last August, there were 3,600 campaigns on GoFundMe that mentioned “diabetes” or “insulin.” In one disturbing case that went viral a couple of years ago, Shane Patrick Boyle died after falling $50 short in his GoFundMe effort to raise $750 to buy a month of insulin. He “succumbed to diabetic ketoacidosis while rationing his last vial of insulin, which made his blood acidic.” It’s a “horrendously painful” way to die.

As conservatives never tire of pointing out, someone has to pay for “free” services. Yet when it comes to services ranging from fire protection to K-12 public schools, the moral calculation is it’s better for everyone to pay for them through progressive taxation. That means no one has to think about money when they call 9-1-1 or enroll their child in school. This concept has become so baked into how we understand what it is to live in a civilized society, that the very thought of charging for these things at the point of service sounds like the stuff of dystopian science fiction.

If that calculation should be applied to anything, it should be medicine. Charging a diabetic for their insulin is like charging someone on a future colony on the moon for their month’s supply of breathable air.

Bill Maher Didn’t Change. He’s Always Been a Cringe Centrist.

Given all that, it’s pathetic that the best President Joe Biden can do is push for a limit on how much people are shaken down for the privilege of continuing to draw breath. And it was telling that in the same State of the Union speech where he introduced the idea, he announced that new anti-viral treatments for COVID were going to be offered for free. COVID is a unique crisis and, thus, centrists are willing to situationally support Medicare for All. The 100,000 people who die every year of diabetes, though? That just feels like business as usual.

It's also worth noting that the Affordable Insulin Now Act wouldn’t have saved Shane Patrick Boyle, who lost his benefits because he’d moved across state lines to care for his ailing mother. It also wouldn’t help many of the thousands of people currently raising money to pay for their insulin—who don’t have health insurance at all. The only thing the Act would do is stop insurers from passing on more $35 a month of the cost to diabetics.

And even that was too much for the allegedly “populist” and anti-“corporate” MAGA wing of the GOP. It’s a ludicrously tiny infringement on the Divine Right of Corporations to make as much money as all possible, at the expense of suffering people. That was too much for the MAGA populists.

If you can see this shameful episode and still believe that “economic populism” exists in any meaningful way on the American Right, I have a whole series of bridges to sell you.

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Matt Gaetz says Americans with diabetes should lose weight after voting against lowering the price of insulin

Johanna Chisholm
5-7 minutes

Matt Gaetz, one of the 193 House Republicans who voted against capping the price of life-saving insulin at $35 a month for most Americans last week, has justified his vote by saying that diabetes sufferers who use the live-saving medicine should lose weight.

In his newsletter on Friday, the Florida congressman wrote that his reason for opposing the Democrat-sponsored bill, which passed with the support of a dozen Republicans crossing the aisle, was that obese people are driving up the cost of the product, and not, as Democrats and activists argue, Big Pharma.

“While Democrat posturing of H.R. 6833 victimizes insulin payees as people with an uncontrollable disease that are being taken advantage of and need Big Brother to throw them a raft, lifestyle changes en masse would expeditiously lower demand and the subsequent prices of insulin,” Mr Gaetz wrote.

In the US, more than 37 million people live with diabetes and a majority of those cases - more than 90 per cent - are living with type two, whereas a minority live with type one, an autoimmune disorder often diagnosed in childhood.

Diabetes is one of the most expensive chronic diseases to live with in the US, and the latter is commonly misunderstood as being solely brought about by lifestyle factors, but in reality is influenced by a complex interplay between genetic and environmental factors, including weight, diet, activity level, genes, epigenetics (gene expression) and even the way your body stores fat.

For both type one and type two, however, there are millions of Americans who rely on insulin to treat the disease, with some people paying as much as $1,000 a month, even when they’re fully or partially covered by insurance.

To Mr Gaetz’s constituents in Florida, where more than 10 percent of the state lives with diabetes, he wrote that while he empathises with those who are struggling with the disease, he still cannot support HR 6833, the legal name of the bill that would cap the price of insulin per month at either $35 or 25 percent of a plan’s negotiated price, whichever is lower.

“I will not see a reemergence of FDR price controls and join the Democrats in their attempt to pave the Road to Serfdom,” he wrote.

Mr Gaetz, who cited the CDC statistic on American diabetes that explains how majority of the country’s cases are type two, continued to lay the blame for the skyrocketing insulin prices at the feet of Americans and their, as he put it, increasing “waistlines”, not the drug makers.

“90-95% of people with diabetes have type 2 diabetes, which “can be prevented or delayed with healthy lifestyle changes, such as losing weight, eating healthy food, and being active,” he began.

“Arbitrary price controls are no substitute for individual weight control. Since 2000, the number of diabetes cases in the U.S. has nearly doubled. The demand for insulin has increased and the requisite price increase has followed suit. In other words, the price of insulin increases as waistlines increase.”

Reactions online were quick to call out the lawmakers stance as hypocritical, considering the passage of such a bill wouldn’t change his ability to afford such lifesaving products (if he required it), as his healthcare, as they argued, is offset by the taxpayers in the country, some of whom voted for him.

@mattgaetz my son was not quite 9 years old when he was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. He weighed 53 lbs. Tell me again how he needed to lose weight to shake this disease. Because of insulin, he lives. He's now 6' 2" and 183 lbs. He still has Diabetes. Please educate yourself.

— Tracy Jenkins (@Auburngirlgrad) April 4, 2022

Too bad you don't care about your constituents as much as Hunter's laptop. Why did you vote no to lower the price of insulin? Your job is to work for the people who put you in Congress, yet you vote against every bill that helps them. Why?

— Harry (@Harry53668234) April 4, 2022

@mattgaetz let's hope you or anyone in your family need tj depend on insulin. Oh wait, you won't have any problems. Your covered by the hard working taxpayer money. You know the same ones who can't afford the insulin

— Marielyn1208 (@marielyn1208) April 4, 2022

Oh, FFS! 🤦🏾‍♀️

Rep. Matt Gaetz voted against capping insulin because he says people should just lose weight!

If it were just as simple as “losing” ignorance!

— 𝑼𝒏𝒂𝒃𝒂𝒔𝒉𝒆𝒅 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑹𝒂𝒘! (@AriesaSandino) April 3, 2022

This isn’t the first time that Mr Gaetz has waded into the waistline wars of the country. In August 2021, the Florida lawmaker said he doesn’t “fit in” at “Boomer congress” because he’s not old or obese.

“The average age in Congress is 58. Boomer congress is highly vulnerable to Covid actually,” he said. “As an institution, we are old, usually obese and otherwise co-morbid. No wonder I don’t fit in.”

Matt Gaetz says today that the reason he doesn’t “fit in” well with other Members of Congress is because most of them are old and obese. pic.twitter.com/4k8MinxYUE

— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) August 26, 2021

The bill still needs to pass through the Senate. And with many Senate Republicans echoing House counterparts, like Mr Gaetz, who argue that the legislation is modelled after a “Big Brother” style governing, it will be an uphill battle to secure the at least 10 GOP Republicans required to join all 50 Democrats to get the bill signed into law.

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Totally agree with the authors. The GOP are just mouthing the words they think the people want to hear. Let’s see if it passes. 

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2 hours ago, DKW 86 said:

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you agree with the ped matt the goof david? you know i am a fatazz and might need help and you would have me just die brother? go have a cold one grins.............now that was funny until i disappear.................

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