March 13, 2017

Former SC Congressman and current Director of Office of Management and Budget under Trump, Mick Mulvaney can't wait to repeal Obamacare. He erroneously believes that Obamacare is in a 'death-spiral,' Health Savings Accounts will 'help' the poor who have no money to put in such accounts and that the taxes generated by the ACA have done more harm than good.

Mulvaney, along with every unqualified misanthrope in Trump's cabinet from Hell, doesn't have the slightest clue (or is pretending not to understand) how insurance works: the healthy must be pooled with the elderly/infirm in order to make it affordable. That's why corporations have been the main provider of insurance prior to the enactment of the ACA. You cannot have affordable care for lower-income Americans, which is synonymous in the USA with health insurance, without a mandate and subsidies. PERIOD.

The man with a net worth of over $3 million (minimum) is boohooing over high deductibles of the ACA, which will become even more unaffordable, while bragging about rescinding all the tax-earning benefits made possible by the ACA. Without tax increases, how can those who have no disposable income afford exorbitant health care? This would be largely dependent on a mythical Health Savings Account? Where would these needy folks get that money? The HSA Fairy?

Mulvaney subscribes to the school of thought that Social Security and Medicare are Ponzi schemes and has every intention of destroying these very successful programs. Terrifying.

MULVANEY: Look, we promise to repeal the taxes for Obamacare. That’s what the bill does. I think we should focus more on the benefits that folks are going to get, from the improved healthcare, the affordable healthcare -- not just affordable health coverage -- that this new level of protection, this new bill, would provide.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But they’re pointing out that older Americans, especially those from ages of 55 to 64, are going to be paying more because insurance companies will be able to charge them more.

MULVANEY: And I seriously doubt that any of those analysis take into consideration the fact the use of HSAs, health saves accounts, the lower premiums that come from competition. These are a group of a self -- listen, everybody’s got in the skin in this game, right? Everybody has a -- has an interested party, and they’re trying to protect their own. What we’re trying to do is make things better for as many people as we possibly can, and right now the bill’s doing exactly that.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But the burden may be falling hardest on older, middle-income Americans. And your critics -- critics are saying this massive transfer of wealth from lower-income Americans to upper-income Americans, when you combine the tax cuts with the loss in subsidies for middle-income Americans.

MULVANEY: I’m not sure where they’re getting a massive of transfer wealth.

SERIOUSLY? How about the hundreds of articles, even in conservative publications, that say precisely what he's denying: this Trumpcare nonsense is a transfer of more money to the wealthy. He went on.

George, what we’re doing is making sure that the truly indigent still have care. Medicaid is still there. In fact, we think it’s going to be even better. The people who are just above Medicaid but still have difficulty buying their own premiums will not only have the refundable tax credit, but they’ll have the ability to use HSAs to pay for their -- to pay for their healthcare on a tax-advantaged basis just like you and I get. So I don’t understand the criticisms lobbed in that fashion.

The bill actually helps a great many people and helps them get something they need, which is healthcare, not health coverage.

Nice try Mick. Health coverage is the same thing, remember? Or is there some Medicare for all program that he's hiding? (We wish!)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Millions are going to be paying more and the wealthy are going to be getting a tax cut. But let me move on now to the state of the union.

MULVANEY: George, George, I’m sorry -- I won’t let you move on from that. I mean, you’re taking that as if it’s gospel truth. That’s the argument of a group of people who don’t like the bill. So we repeal the taxes in Obamacare. It’s what the Republicans have done from the very beginning. The fact that certain groups will pay less tax is not a -- is not central to the issue. We’ve done this in a fashion that allows the people who cannot afford healthcare now to get it. I don’t know why some people are so dead set other people benefiting at the same time.

That last sentence may have caused your jaw to drop, because we all know who is dead set against those who need benefits to receive them: The Greedy GOP.

Must everyone affiliated with Trump project their own shortcomings onto others because that's they only thing they know: the worst possible way to run government.

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