Discussion: Ex-Reagan Staffer Who Says ACA Saved His Life Confronts Ryan At Town Hall (VIDEO)

You know, I can never keep track. Who is Ryan’s Master of Life this week, Jesus Christ or Ayn Rand?

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(I would be curious to know how this guy voted in the election…)

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Great point. Some republicans may lack the shame gene, but not one of them seems to have the empathy gene until life gives them a good kick in the pants.

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Remember: “What the HELL have you got to lose?”

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You, know, it’s not terrorism if someone who went to Wharton makes money off it.

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Even then they don’t become empathetic per se, they just see how something helped them or their family and friends.

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I think what really needs to be emphasized by the Democrats and outgoing admin officials, not Obama personally except when directly questioned by the press, is, "these are the epsecific steps which have lead to a weakening of the laws intent and the laws ability to be put on solid financial footing. The GOP through the courts and through inaction have allowed the law to not change in positive strengttening ways, except by repeal votes, but by weakening it through the courts;

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2015/12/17/Congress-Weakens-Obamacare-Limiting-Bailout-Funds-Insurers,
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/republican-guerrilla-warfare-obamacare, where the "NFIB v. Sebelius – the mostly failed 2012 Supreme Court challenge that went after after Obamacare’s individual mandate.

While conservatives lost on the mandate issue in NFIB, they did score a ruling against Medicaid expansion."
and a good timeline exists here, https://thinkprogress.org/blow-by-blow-a-comprehensive-timeline-of-the-gops-4-year-battle-to-kill-obamacare-5dd069a5518a#.u0fb5k6vd
Can we build on this list guys?

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At least he spoke up, and right to the Speaker’s face. And at least he gave appreciation to Obama, unlike those goops who say get rid of Obamacare but don’t touch my ACA insurance. I thought it took some courage to do what he did.

Also, Ryan is incredibly bad at sincerity. “I’m glad you alive, no really.”

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At least they provide a lesson to others not so enamored with the GOP.

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Ryan doesn’t plan to pay for it. A significant point in his and other GOP plans is the Tenth Amendment ideology of returning control to the states. There may be a few progressive states that can both afford reasonable universal coverage and are willing to pay for it, but it will be a very small minority. Everybody else will be back to the ACA status quo ante, i.e., at the complete mercy of the insurance companies for the scope and cost of coverage.

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As the guy likely voted for Trump, I hope they roll back every single line of Obamacare as the republicans promised to do and this guy kicks the bucket. In four year (maybe two if lucky) we will get a chance of doing it over, and this time do it right, single payer, Medicare for all !!!

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Or running up huge deficits and yelling at Democrats that they need to be fiscally responsible and cut every program except defense spending.

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Bet your tail he voted for Trump, cause we needed change and crooked Hillary emails.

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Someone should bring up to Ryan the fact that Ayn Rand was completely in favor of public assistance and medical aid when SHE was sick.

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The plan is for the Republicans to pas a repeal effective in 3 years without a replacement to say during the 2018 midterms - If you vote us out, the Democrats will be at fault for the loss of Healthcare. Cause we all know the Orange Baboon and GOPers in the Senate will not pass anything. History has proven the public will fall for this.

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The thing that I find so utterly confounding, exasperating, surreal . . . I’m groping for the right word here . . .

But whatever that word is, what we’re seeing going on in Congress right now is legislation on hugely consequential matters based upon the exact same rejection of science, math, conditional deference to expertise, and objective reality as you see at work in their rejection of climate change science, their continuing adherence to abstinence only education, their insistence that the BLS makes up labor statistics, and their demand for “dynamic scoring” of the fiscal impact of tax cuts.

They are getting ready to do things that will have catastrophic consequences for real people, for an economy where healthcare is a fifth of GDP and for their party. Consequences that are foreseeable, and being foreseen right now, in real time, by anyone and everyone who has any kind of realistic grasp of the concepts underlying actuarial tables, adverse selection, risk perception, and, hell, supply and demand. But because they live in a world populated with magic asterisks and where the way things must be in order for their dogma to be true is as valid as any ol’ expert’s opinion on reality, they’re just charging ahead over the cliff, pulling the entire goddamn country along behind them.

You can’t get rid of the mandate and yet keep guaranteed issuance. You can’t get rid of the taxes and keep the subsidies. You can’t destroy the exchanges and yet keep the insurance market stable. You can’t wipe out the actuarial assumptions underlying the entire individual insurance market without wiping out individual insurance.

These guys have fantasized themselves into a dreamworld where all they have to do is throw a mass blood-sacrifice of sick people (or, high risk pools, as they’re branding the planned mass murder) that will cause the Free Market Fairies to come out of hiding and sprinkle their Free Market Magic Pixie Dust and Magic Asterisks over a fifth of the economy and make it all better. Because, apparently, once they kick all the sick people into the gutter to die for inability to buy a high-risk policy, no one else will ever get sick again. Because freedom.

And yet, where the MSM looks at Jim Inhoffe waving a snowball around on the Senate floor as proof that there’s no global warming and sees a buffoonish ignoramus, they look at the Zombie-Eyed Granny Starver and see an earnest, serious policy wonk. But that’s what Ryan is–he’s Jim Inhoffe waving around a snowball. Except Ryan’s snowball is made of frozen blood.

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And then how do they square the clear fact that they opposed a policy until they personally needed it, meaning they were wrong to oppose it at all? Does this make them reconsider any of their other positions, or their affiliation with the party that led them down the path that almost killed them?

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Hell, I thought he was Dem plant. I know we’re all feeling hard core these days but wishing this man would die is beyond the pale. Even if he is an R, he doesn’t appear to be a rabid one. We need Rs like this, like it or not.

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I need more than one like for Steve. I probably need at least 100

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That’s what makes them Republicans. Quite literally. They just can’t put themselves into the shoes of someone who’s not just like them.

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