Only 12 House Republicans voted in favor of price caps on copayments for insulin.
It's not even legislation meant to limit the amount of money patients spent
on insulin itself.
It only has to do with copays and only 12 House Republicans voted in favor of it.
Matt Gaetz was not one of them.
Now, in an effort to explain his no vote on this legislation,
which luckily did pass the House but will unlikely pass in the Senate,
he put out this statement, here's what he said.
In his newsletter Friday Gaetz told his constituents that he opposed
the bill because fat people, not Big Pharma, are responsible for
driving up the cost of insulin.
He suggested that type 2 diabetes, which is often linked to obesity,
could be cured if only people would work out more and
lose weight, at which point they wouldn't need insulin anymore and
the drug costs would fall without government intervention.
Now, the statement is more than callous,
it's also incredibly ignorant and I'll explain why in just a moment,
but here's what his newsletter said, specifically verbatim.
While Democrat posturing of HR 6833 victimizes insulin
payees as people with an uncontrollable disease that are being
taken advantage of and need Big Brother to throw them a raft.
Lifestyle changes in mass would expeditiously lower demand and
the subsequent prices of insulin.
90-95% of people with diabetes have type 2 diabetes, which can be prevented or
delayed with healthy lifestyle changes such as losing weight,
eating healthy food and being active.
Now, of course, he noted a statistic there 90-95%,
notably there was no evidence for that statistic whatsoever.
But I just want to be clear there are many people who have diabetes who did
not make lifestyle decisions to have it, meaning it's not related to obesity,
it's not related to their inactivity or lack of exercise.
I have a family member who has diabetes as a result of
medication she is forced to take as a result of a different condition,
which has nothing to do with her lifestyle choices.
So many Americans deal with the same thing and by the way,
even if 100% of Americans with diabetes were suffering from it
as a result of obesity, who the hell is Matt Gaetz to tell them no
pharmaceutical companies get to price gouge you as much as they want.
And as we know, this is really just price gouging, there was a giant story
about Senator Joe Manchin's daughter when she was the CEO of Mylan pharmaceuticals.
She struck a deal with Fizer to prevent them from putting out a generic
version of the EpiPen.
And the reason why she did that was to ensure that the EpiPen would be
monopolized and she could charge whatever she wanted for it.
And then she agreed to share some of those profits with Fizer essentially breaking
all sorts of antitrust laws which she was never held accountable for
because her father happens to be one of the worst US Senators of all time.
But he also says in his newsletter,
Arbitrary price controls are no substitute for individual weight control.
Since 2000, the number of diabetes cases in the United States has nearly doubled.
The demand for insulin has increased and
the requisite price increases has followed suit.
In other words, the price of insulin increases as waistlines increase.
And strong words for Matt Gaetz,
I wish the media actually cared about this story and covered it more.
Because the fact of the matter is there's a huge portion of Florida that not only
has diabetes but there are also being price gouged,
thanks to the price of insulin.
More than a quarter of Florida residents are obese, including Matt Gaetz,
favorite Palm Beach resident, former president Donald Trump.
And more than 10 percent of the state's population suffers from diabetes,
not of all, not all of which of course is caused by lifestyle factors.
Got more details which we'll get to in just a minute but
Jake why don't you jump in?
>> Yeah, so we showed on a previous show that this is not an isolated incident,
not just from Matt Gaetz but for several Republican Congress people and so
called thought leaders.
God help us on what thoughts they're leading, but
they're attacking overweight people and blaming them.
Previously, it was mainly for Covid now it's also in this case for
diabetes and the price of insulin.
And I guess it's a way to try to get the attention
off there giant big pharmaceutical donors.
So I don't know that Matt Gaetz has those to be fair about it.
So I don't know what his motivation is, but for him,
it might just be an extra way to be mean and to bully people cuz that's basically
what the Republican publishers have cuz just the worst bullies you've ever seen.
So, look, if you think the comments that Anna read are not bad enough,
he's gone after overweight people on at least four different occasions.
I'll give you one here, he said, he decried quote, this is from other jokes
he decried quote woke culture for quote cheerleading for the chubbies.
So this is a guy who has been attacking people based on their weight for
a long time.
And I guess in his bro culture, that's really funny him and
the bros laugh about it like [SOUND] yeah, she's overweight and so is he.
And I think that he probably gets a psychological kick out of it.
But overall, the main reason Republicans are doing it is to
protect their beloved drug company donors.
>> By the way, I mean, while Democrats probably wanna pat on the back for
passing this very narrow piece of legislation in the House,
which is very unlikely to pass in the Senate.
I'm gonna go after them in a moment, but I'm not done with Matt Gaetz just yet.
And more importantly, the so called pro life Republicans who are only
pro life in the context of being able to control a woman's body.
So let's say we play devil's advocate, right?
And we just go along with what Matt Gaetz is arguing here, that the majority of
people who have diabetes have it because they can't control their eating,
they're not getting enough exercise.
Okay, so what Matt Gaetz is advocating for along with the majority
of his Republican colleagues in the House is for people who can't afford
this medication, people who can't afford insulin to just die.
That is what they are effectively advocating for.
He is saying, because that's how this works guys,
everyone knows this is how it works.
If you can't afford the medication and you have diabetes, what happens to you?
You die, you don't take the medication you don't get the insulin you need.
And then these clowns want to turn around and claim that they're pro life.
They're pro life again only under incredibly narrow circumstances.
And those narrow circumstances include a woman being able to make
a decision about her own body.
Because the anti-abortion movement in this country has always been and
always will be about control, about accumulating political power and
about punishment towards women who engage in sexual activity for
pleasure as opposed to procreation.
Now, putting that aside, I wanna note some of the other health issues associated
with diabetes, health issues that lead to diabetes.
Because he would have you believe,
of course that it's because people are just overweight but no,
that's really not how it works, 100% of the time, 90% of time, or 95% of the time.
There are genetic mutations, for instance, mono genic diabetes so
that's a diabetes that's caused by genetic mutations.
There's also cystic fibrosis, which could not only increase the chance of getting
diabetes, but you could very well get diabetes as a result of that condition.
There's also hemochromatosis, which could again,
a genetic condition that could lead to the development of type 2 diabetes.
This is not based on lifestyle choices, this is based on a genetic condition.
But hey, according to Matt Gaetz,
if you can't afford insulin to keep yourself alive, screw you.
He's just gonna paint you as a fat person and be done with it.
Ther're also hormonal diseases, including cushing's syndrome, where your body
produces excess cortisone and then that ends up translating to type 2 diabetes.
There's also hyperthyroidism, which is actually incredibly common and
that could also develop into type 2 diabetes.
And these again,
are conditions that are not based on lifestyle choices that people make.
But again, my point of view is even if someone has made poor health
decisions in their life and their suffering from diabetes as a result,
I think that it is the antithesis of a pro life agenda to give that individual or
those people the middle finger and tell them to go f themselves.
If they can't afford the medication they need to survive.
>> Yeah, I figured out while we were doing the segment.
So Republicans hate anyone they think is not like them.
And so they circle the wagons and if they think you're part of my identity, for
whatever reason why christian in my church, in my neighborhood so
those don't have to be just race or religion.
Then I'm gonna circle the wagons for you, but
I hate everyone outside the wagons and I will take great pleasure in hating them.
And so Matt Gaetz I guess thinks he's in good shape so
he doesn't relate to people who are overweight.
So by definition being a Republican these days,
he feels he has to hate people who are overweight because they're not like them.
If you're not like Matt Gaetz he's gonna hate you.
By the way, 25% of Florida is obese so,
>> Yeah, we live in America come on.
>> Yeah, if his district holds to the Florida average, which it likely does,
that means he just gravely insulted a quarter of his voters.
But for Republicans, it doesn't matter, you can call them obese, you
can call their wife ugly, you could have sex with underage girls apparently right?
In Matt Gaetz district and they don't mind any of it as long as you hate the others.
So hey, enjoy these fake populists robbing you blind on behalf of Big Pharma.
And if you're a right winger who said I'm not taking the vaccine because of
Big Pharma man, and then you say, well, what?
If someone is overweight, I agree with Matt Gaetz,
you should give Big Pharma $1000 instead of $35.
Really?
Republicans, do you have any compassion left for anyone that isn't you?
It's, >> No, they don't, they don't but Jake,
let's now move over to Democrats because trying to pass
legislation that just singles out.
One medication here, maybe another medication that if we're lucky, if we're
lucky, if we're lucky, maybe Democrats might propose lowering the price or
capping the copay for another pharmaceutical drug.
[SOUND] I mean, this is such a failed strategy, right?
How about instead of singling out one medication or another,
pass legislation that caps the price for all pharmaceutical drugs.
That would appeal to far more Americans since most americans would
be positively impacted by the passage of that kind of legislation.
And it would be far more difficult for clowns like Matt Gaetz or
any other Republican to point to a specific medication how they don't need
price caps because people who are sick with that illness or
have that disease only have it because of lifestyle choices.
I mean, Democrats love to put themselves in a weaker position, but
more importantly, the other thing, this is a perfect opportunity.
I mean, the Democratic Party should exploit,
take advantage of these comments by Matt Gaetz.
This is not a politically popular opinion, but will they?
No they won't, I mean, they'll focus on other salacious stuff which his
constituents don't care about at all.
But let me tell you something, whether you're a Democrat or Republican,
if you can't afford the cost associated with the medications you need to survive,
you're gonna care about that issue.
But Democrats will just let this fall by the wayside because they do not know
how to do appropriate political campaigning.
>> Yeah, so look, you won't get this on any other channel on Fox News, they'll
tell you Democrats are full of crap but the Republicans are lovely, lovely people.
The MSNBC will tell you that Republicans are monsters but
the Democrats are just the biggest angels you've ever seen.
No, the reality is 90% of politicians are full of crap, they're lying to you 24/7.
So, okay, you say you don't want price caps?
Easy to solve,
why don't we have Medicare negotiate drug prices on all the drugs that they buy?
That would make a giant difference, it pulls it over 80%.
I've seen some polls where it pulls over 90% of the American
people definitely wanted, it would lower all drug prices.
Yet both Democrats and Republicans agree not to do it no matter who's in charge,
cuz they're all criminals who have gotten bribe by drug companies.
Do you see any of the fake populists on the right wing telling you that?
No, they're trying to scare you about mass and vaccines, meanwhile
funneling tons of profit off your back to their big drug company donors.
That's who people like Matt Gaetz are.