>> A staffer for a GOP North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis effectively told one of their
constituents to kick rocks after she called to share her concerns about losing health
insurance as a result of her husband being furloughed. Now, Bev Veals is the name of
the constituent who called.
She's from Carolina Beach, a three-time cancer survivor. She called her senator out of fear
that her health insurance was at risk. She had previously faced medical bankruptcy and
difficulty accessing care and her husband was furloughed because of the pandemic. She
wanted assurance that she'd have coverage if she lost her health insurance.
Okay, very common thing that Americans are concerned about right now. Makes a lot of
sense that you would hit up a representative, hit up a member of congress, hit up your senator
and see if there is any solution to prevent the loss of your healthcare coverage. Well,
here's the kind of response she received from Thom Tillis's staffer.
>> I think that if you can't afford it, you don't get to have it and that includes health
care. >> Yeah, just like if I wanna go to the store
and buy a new dress shirt, if I can't afford that dress shirt, I don't get to get it.
But health care is something that people need, especially if they have cancer.
>> Well, you got to find a way to get it. >> Well, you just got to find a way to get
it. The staffer compared health care, something that you need to stay alive to buying a dress
shirt, buying something that you don't necessarily need to stay alive.
But this is a common ideology among members of Congress. Nando, I wanna hear your thoughts
on this. >> My immediate reaction is obviously that's
a horrifying thing to say to someone. But what this staffer did is that he committed
the biggest sin you can in American politics which is tell your constituents the truth.
Because that's what this person did, I mean. And this idea that you can only get proper
health care if you can afford it is the ideology that pervades the US Congress on both sides
of the aisle that this was evidenced by the fact that the Democrats blocked any attempt
to put Medicare for all even in the platform.
So if you have any employer tight insurance system, you're gonna have people who are uninsured
at some point. Those people will not be able to get health care because they won't be able
to afford it. So this is just the truth of American politics and the truth of the system
is that if you can't afford care, you won't get quality care.
That's just the reality of it. So yeah, usually politicians have better sense than to tell
the the truth. They usually lie to them. They usually say all kinds of weird things about
like no, if you just do the proper thing, you'll get access to health care or something
like that.
But the reality is that tens of thousands of people die every year because they don't
get health care they need because they can't afford it. And tens of millions of people
in the United States are uninsured. So yeah, this staffer's punished for speaking the truth.
>> Yeah, I think that you make a great point because the top issue that ends up making
headlines and getting staffers or members of Congress in trouble is when they demonstrate
just how callous they really are-
>> When they expose the real thoughts and ideology behind the policy decisions that
they make. And you're right in pointing out that this is a problem on both sides of the
aisle. I mean, right now, during this pandemic, now more than ever, it's so clear that the
American people were lied to whenever we heard the same argument over and over again against
a single payer health care system, against Medicare for All.
This notion of, well, if you have single payer health care, you don't have choices. Okay,
but right now, Americans don't have choices. In fact, before the pandemic, Americans had
no choice. In most cases, unless you were unbelievably independently wealthy, you had
to rely on your employer to provide health care-
>> Yeah. >> Right? And do you get to decide, do you
have any say in what type of health care provider your employer signs on to? Of course, you
don't. >> Yeah.
>> Do you have any say on whether or not the board decides to cut some of the money that
goes toward the employee health care programs?
No, you have no say over that. And you also have no say over what happens to you and your
health care after you get laid off during a pandemic. I mean, we already knew that people
didn't actually have choices. But I think that this pandemic certainly amplifies what
progressives, what people on the left have been trying to scream from the rooftops.
What blows my mind is that there hasn't been any progress in-
>> Yeah. >> Pressuring the Democratic Party to move
in a direction that makes a lot more sense. In fact, if you look at the general election,
you look at Biden and Trump, Trump is effectively pushing Biden further to the right on a number
of issues.
I just watched an interview with Biden, where he started attacking Trump over how soft he
is on China. >> And I was like, what? It was just-
>> Yeah. >> Strange, yeah.
>> Yeah, no, I remember the line that single payer health care didn't save Italy from having
problems during the pandemic, just the most cynical argument you could ever imagine.
But yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, I wonder what this guy, what he would want his
staffer to tell a constituent that is telling them that? What is the company line when someone
says I have cancer, I don't have health care, what do I do?
What should they have the staffer said? I really don't understand what cuz the Republicans
obviously they don't even know how to lie about these things.
>> I know. >> So yeah-
>> I know what the answer is, it's easy. >> What?
>> Obama did this. It's Obama's fault.
>> Right, right, it's Obama's fault. >> Yeah, I mean, it would be about Obama somehow.
>> Yeah, yeah. >> Somehow they would twist it into an Obama
issue. >> But speaking of which-
>> That's how. >> There was a response from Tillis's office.
They released an official statement kind of apologizing.
And so let me read you what it said. The way Mrs. Veals was talked to by a staff assistant
in our Washington office was completely inappropriate and violates the code of conduct Senator Tillis
has for his staff, which is why immediate disciplinary action has been taken. We don't
know what that disciplinary action is.
My read of this is that the staffer's still employed. And maybe there was some sort of
talking down to, I have no idea. But the problem here isn't necessarily the rhetoric or the
tone used by the staffer. >> Yeah.
>> That callous nature of the call was more about what the ideology behind it is, right,
the ideology of no, healthcare is a commodity.
What are you talking about? >> Yeah.
>> If you can't afford it then- >> Yeah.
>> I don't know, figure it out. That's the issue here. And then real quick-
>> Yeah, I buy my shirts like everybody else. >> You got to pony up the cash, baby.
>> Jeez, and in terms of the Affordable Care Act and where Republicans stand on health
care, sure they're definitely worse than Democrats are.
For instance, the Trump administration, as some of you might already know, is currently
arguing that the Supreme Court should overturn all of Obamacare, throwing millions of people
off their insurance and invalidating protections for pre-existing conditions, along with other
provisions that protect patients. And as you guys know, I mean, the Affordable Care Act
certainly has its issues.
But there were important protections baked into that legislation that I would hate to
see gone because people with pre-existing conditions would find themselves in the same
situation as they did pre-2008. They'd get rejected by health care providers and it would
be even more of a nightmare than what we're experiencing now.
And let me also remind you that North Carolina is one of the 12 states in the United States
that has not adopted Medicaid expansion, a policy that would help cover people like Veals
if they lost their insurance. Tillis opposes Medicaid expansion. And under the Affordable
Care Act, basically the federal government gives states money like, hey, here's some
money to expand your Medicaid program so more people can qualify if they don't have health
insurance.
And so yeah, a bunch of red states, 12 of them have denied that federal funding.
>> Yeah, and the Medicaid expansion was the best part about Obamacare, right? It was the
one that helped, that actually provided relief for millions of people. The fact that so many
states have rejected the Medicaid expansion, that is just pure ideology.
Because usually states would love to accept federal funding with no strings attached,
which is what the Medicaid expansion was, but that is just pure, pure ideology in its
purest form.