Heritage Foundation's wingnut president, former Sen. Jim DeMint is out of the trail, trying to dupe a bunch of old white people that are showing up at their events that "Obamacare" is going to destroy their lives. Never mind as Sarah Jones pointed out today, that the Affordable Care Act is based on a proposal that came out of his foundation in the '80's.
Jim DeMint tells Delaware crowd that Obamacare is un-American:
Conservative former Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina was in Brandywine Hundred Thursday for the last stop on a nationwide tour to drum up support for cutting off funding for the coming implementation of the Affordable Care Act.
DeMint, a favorite of the tea party, told a standing-room-only ballroom at the DoubleTree Hotel, that the health care reform known as Obamacare is a threat to personal freedom and an effort by Democrats and progressives to exercise control over citizens.
“I cannot think of anything that’s more un-American than national government-run healthcare,” DeMint said to the crowd of conservatives from around the state. “(Liberals) see as their holy grail taking control of the health care system…If they can control that they can control most of our lives.”
The Republican left the Senate at the end of last year to become president of the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation, whose lobbying arm, Heritage Action for American, organized Thursday’s event. The gathering was the last stop on a nine-city defund-Obamacare tour that began earlier this month.
“We don’t have the time to wait, on Oct. 1 sign ups for these exchanges start, on Jan. 1 the subsidies start going out,” he said. “The time is now to fight.” [...]
DeMint said Republicans in Congress should not back away from a budget showdown over Obamacare.
“If there’s ever been anything worth fighting for in the political arena, it’s this,” he said.
DeMint preached a set of health care reforms to the enthusiastic crowd that he said would accomplish the same goals as Obamacare, namely cheaper insurance coverage for more Americans, without direct government intervention in the insurance process.
“We know there are common sense ideas that can make health care and health insurance more available,” he said. “If you give businesses a tax break for buying health insurance, you should do that for individuals as well…Let people buy health insurance anywhere in the country. Those choices become available as companies have to compete for your business.”
DeMint also said the “Medicaid-style” plans open to new patients under the Affordable Care Act won’t pay doctors enough to provide quality care.
“It’s like having a bus ticket with no buses,” he said.
This is the same event where Ted Cruz's crazy father went off the rails as well. Woo boy, what fun. Here's more on the event from PoliticusUSA: Jim DeMint Wigs Out and Calls Obamacare a Liberal Plot to Control Republican Lives:
Former South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint demonstrated that he really is a South Carolina Republican when he stumped for Heritage Action (i.e., big corps) in Delaware Thursday and tried to scare his audience into believing that ObamaCare is a liberal Jedi mind trick. [...]
Oh yes, patriots—the time to fight for big corps is now! Don’t let them make less profit than they want. Give up your health insurance so Jim DeMint’s corporate masters can make more money because of the Jedi thing.
Never mind that ObamaCare is based on a 1989 proposal by Stuart M. Butler at Heritage called, “Assuring Affordable Health Care for All Americans” — which included a provision to “mandate all households to obtain adequate insurance”.
DeMint’s argument takes aim at federal healthcare, like Medicare and TRICARE. So his message is those big bad liberals are gonna steal your freedom with federal healthcare like Jim DeMint still has access to, and our troops use, and like Medicare… These are all bad, evil things that allow Democrats control over your lives. Give them up, Jim preached.
Go read the rest for how these are being responded to this time around. And I'm with her on what it will do to the Republican party if they are actually foolish enough to listen to DeMint and shut down the government.
