Gop Sen. Lamar Alexander: Medicaid a ‘Medical Ghetto’
November 21, 2009
(ChattahBox)—During Saturday’s Senate session leading up to the procedural vote on the Democratic health care reform bill, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) spoke on the Senate floor against the expansion of Medicaid in the bill. In condescending terms, utterly disdainful of the thousands of low-income Americans who rely on Medicaid, Alexander repeatedly referred to the federal-state health care program, as a “medical ghetto.”
In Sen. Alexander’s world, a government run health insurance program for poor and disabled Americans, is akin to the public squalor of an urban ghetto populated with poverty-stricken minorities. The reality is that; the Medicaid program affords low-cost quality health care to many individuals who would be normally shut out of private health insurance plans. And most Americans covered under Medicaid are pleased with the program.
Sen. Alexander believes that he and his family belong to a better class of people and are too good for Medicare:
“We’ve heard eloquent statements about how moving 15 million low-income Americans into a program called Medicaid, which is a medical ghetto, is not health care reform.”
“The governor of Tennessee, who is a Democratic governor, has estimated that the cost to our state of this bill — of moving 15 million Americans into this medical ghetto — is about $800 million over five years.”
“Or arrogant in its dumping of 15 million low-income Americans into a medical ghetto called Medicaid that none of us, or any of our families, would ever want to be a part of for our health care.”
Sen. Alexander is not the only Republican lawmaker to turn up his nose at the Medicaid program. Right-wing Republican Congresswoman, Rep. Virginia Foxx (NC) actually believes that Americans are better off uninsured than insured under Medicaid.
Watch:
Source: Think Progress
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