It's Fred Snowflack of the Daily Record v. Congressman Rodney Frelinghuysen. Snowflack saw this video posted on Frelinghuysen's website, featured where he talks about the number of uninsured:
That's right, if you break down the number of uninsured people by how they are characterized, they don't really count as not having insurance according to Frelinghuysen. Snowflack decided to pen an editorial taking Frelinghuysen to task. Here's how he started:
One way to diminish the magnitude of a problem is to pretend it doesn't exist. Republicans are doing that with healthcare, something that was plainly evident when Rodney P. Frelinghuysen talked to seniors last week at an assisted-living center in Morristown.
We'll continue below the fold as Snowlfack takes apart Frelinghuysen's argument and calls him out on his talking points.
First there is Frelinghuysen trying to divide the uninsured into segments:
Even if one does not like some of those included in the huge batch of uninsured - for instance, the estimated 9.5 million illegals - those individuals still are getting health care paid for by the taxpayers. So are mamy of the rest of the people the congressman cited, including the temporarily uninsured. Speaking of which, it must be a real bummer to need, say, a heart operation when you are merely temporarily uninsured. The Republicans? fact sheet suggests that those individuals should be flagged for bad timing.
Then there is the argument that the group of 46 million uninsured includes 7.3 million people wealthy enough to pay for their own health needs. That makes sense if you are a millionaire - literally. But shockingly, Frelinghuysen's handout described those 'higher income' individuals as those making $84,108 a year or more. This is how you knew the congressman's fact sheet came from some national Republican clearinghouse. No one from New Jersey would suggest that $84,000 a year is a high income wage. Clearly, people earning, say, even $100,000 a year without health insurance are going to need financial help if they encounter a major medical emergency.
No, congressman, you can't wash the problem of the uninsured away.
Then Snowflack turned to the idea that a public option will put private insurance out of business:
As a discussion ensued, Frelinghuysen spoke of private insurance companies and said they may ask themselves under a Barack Obama reform plan, "Why should we provide it (health insurance)?" The answer is simple: It will be provided because there will be a market for it.
One of the more off-the-wall arguments is that a public insurance option would put private insurance companies out of business. Balderdash. The public school system does not put private schools out of business, nor would a public insurance option put Blue Cross/Blue Shield out of business. What a public option would do is foster competition, something so-called free-market conservatives should embrace.
It's one thing to say you don't like the plans that are coming through Congress and the Congressman has every right to oppose the legislation. But to try and act like people without insurance don't count and we don't pay for their lack of insurance because of how Frelinghuysen identifies them is just patently ridiculous.
