Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA) said the voting to repeal the Affordable Care Act is a vote for “free market and competition” over “Stalin-type socialism” in a radio show Tuesday.
“In a nutshell, there is a decision of whether you believe in the free market and competition or whether you believe in Stalin-type socialism,” Issa said on Boston Herald Radio ahead of the Senate’s vote on the motion to proceed Tuesday. “I know that always gets people going — ‘How can you compare?’ — but the fact is that when one entity, the federal government [decides] … how much you get in health care versus how much you paid in or currently make, and whether you get a surgical procedure or not.”
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His portrayal of former President Obama’s signature achievement as “Stalin-type socialism” is more extreme than the congressman has been recently, when he has touted his collaboration with Obama. Issa represents a competitive district, and he once even included the former president in a campaign mailer.
The Congressional Budget Office projected that the House bill would leave 23 million people without insurance within the next decade, and the GOP leadership has struggled to gain votes from centrist moderates because of deep cuts to Medicaid funding.
“Unless we roll Obamacare back… You no longer control your own life,” Issa said. “Understand that on one hand, Obamacare says that every woman is going to get her prescriptions for birth control paid for but they also decide whether or not you’re going to get a new lifesaving medicine, whether a procedure is going to be paid for.”
Many Republicans in favor of the ACA repeal bills that have been proposed in Congress have argued that a vote for repeal is a vote for more choices for consumers, a sentiment Issa echoed in his Tuesday interview.
“The reality is that America became great because we had decisions and our decision was to go with things that worked and to go away from things that didn’t,” Issa said Tuesday.
But all estimates by the CBO point to millions of people losing their insurance and skyrocketing premiums if the ACA is repealed and replaced with a Republican plan.
If Obamacare is repealed, California has the most to lose – putting the insured on edgeCalifornia led the way with Obamacare, signing up more people for health insurance than any other state. Now with a…www.latimes.comThe effects of repealing Obamacare would hit Issa’s home state particularly hard, too, as the California signed up more people for insurance under the ACA than any other state.