Last week, I commented on some Republican senators who pretended that you could outlaw denials of health coverage for pre-existing conditions without having an individual mandate by suggesting that they just don't care enough about the policy dilemma to bother making sense. Not so Roy Blunt, a Missouri congressman running for Senate. This is a guy unconcerned with saying what's politically popular (via Think Progress):
BLUNT: Access for kids who have pre-existing conditions, who would be against that? But access for adults, who have done nothing to take care of themselves, who actually will have as I've just described every incentive not to get insurance until the day that you know that you're going to have medical expenses, that's, that's a very different kind of story.
Right. Because why should we do any favors for people who are irresponsible enough to get cancer? Damn freeloaders, thinking they ought to be able to buy health insurance.
Let's give Blunt some credit here. It would be easy, like other Republicans do, to pretend that you can outlaw denials for pre-existing conditions without having an individual mandate. Blunt won't do that -- because he knows that a person with a pre-existing condition is nothing more than a health scofflaw.
How the GOP got a reputation as a party that doesn't care about people, I'll never understand.
-- Paul Waldman
