Karl Rove: Some Conservatives Objections To Speaker Ryan’s Obamacare Replacement Bill Are “Unhinged”
“Conservatives are an independent lot but I have to admit some of the objections to this bill and some of the rhetoric strikes me as unhinged and out of touch. For example, we have one conservative for whom I have enormous respect who seems to have as one of his principle objections that fact that look, this continues one part of Obamacare that you can’t be denied by an insurance company for coverage for a pre-existing condition. Under the Obamacare law they said they are going to make that work by requiring everybody to have insurance which the Republicans kill the individual mandate, kill the employer mandate but they keep this ability for people to show up and get insurance. But they say if you are not under what is called continuous coverage, that is to say you have been mostly covered by insurance for most of the time for a period of time, the insurance company can charge you up to 30% more for that coverage. That causes people to say if I think I might need insurance maybe I better get insurance rather than wait until the day I get sick and this conservative is saying that’s unfair. That’s unfair to the people who show up to ask for insurance at the last minute. Well, okay, fine, if you want to be consistent then be in favor of ending safe driver discounts because that’s unfair to the unsafe drivers. Stop allowing for people to have discounts if they have a fire alarm in their house for homeowners insurance because that’s unfair to the people who say screw it, I am not going to buy a homeowners fire alarm. Why is that a reason to be against this bill.”
—- Karl Rove on the divide in the GOP over the Obamacare replacement bill
Former Deputy Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor to President George W. Bush, Karl Rove explained to Kilmeade & Friends why the objections from the conservative wing of the GOP against keeping the Obamacare mandate that insurance companies must not discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions are “unhinged”. Rove makes the argument that conservatives who do not want to penalize those who wait until they are sick to buy health insurance might as well be in favor of ending discounts for safe drivers because it would be unfair to unsafe drivers. When asked about Congressman Dave Brat’s objection saying the replacement bill will continue to increase premiums, Rove shot back that premiums will go up for only a year or two because it will take reasonable amount of time to transform the bad system into the new system. After that happens consumers will see the cost of insurance average 10% less than it is today for a 10 year period.
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