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Rounds Says Unemployed Don’t Deserve Help Paying for Health Care

Marion Michael Rounds's weekend press is the usual blap of vague policy pronouncements and wishful thinking: South Dakota common sense, national debt, EPA bad, go broke and die if you aren't working—

—wait, what's that last one?

[Rounds] wants to fix the problems with the Affordable Care Act by replacing it with a product he says is not dependent on promising people their health care will be paid whether they’re working or not [Roger Larsen, "Rounds: S.D.’s common sense needed: U.S. Senate candidate speaks at Huron Rotary Club," Huron Plainsman, 2014.04.05].

Hmm... as I've been working with the health insurance exchanges, I must have missed the call script that said, "Press 2 for free health insurance so you can quit your job."

As usual, Rounds gives us no concrete policy proposal, just words meant to enflame voters. But what is he saying? If you don't have a job, no one pays for your health care? That flies in the face of half of the health care model our country follows. Retirees get Medicare. Veterans get VA benefits, whether they have jobs or not. Children get CHIP. Rounds seems to be saying people only deserve help if they don't need help, which is offensive to morality and simple logic.

6 Comments

  1. owen reitzel 2014.04.07

    typical Republican Cory. Offer no specific plan to replace the ACA. I hope I can talk to Rounds and try to nail him down on this.
    He wants a market-place approach but again he's never offered specifics and I don't feel that approach won't work.

  2. larry kurtz 2014.04.07

    Rounds struggling to remain relevant: priceless.

  3. Douglas Wiken 2014.04.07

    "Discipline" has such a nice conservative ring to it. Never any specifics that relate to the real world.

    It is time to get the insurance racketeers out of health insurance. Billions of medical care dollars go to insurance flunkies who never ever add a thing to actual health care.

  4. Roger Cornelius 2014.04.07

    As Republicans continue to debate among themselves on how to either repeal ACA or fix what is not broken, they should also consider this.

    There are 7.1 million Americans enrolled in Obamacare, I don't that if that number includes the numbers of people enrolled in Medicaid Expansion in states that offer it, 7.1 million is a significant number.

    Is Mike Rounds, or any other Republican, willing to stand up to those enrollees and voters and tell them he is going to take their health coverage away from them.

  5. Tim 2014.04.07

    RC, if you count medicare and kids staying on parents policies until 26 the number is much higher than 7.1 mil. Rounds won't stand up to anybody, he'll just get in lockstep with the rest of them and then blame Obama. Republicans are getting ready to pass that idiotic budget in the house, if they ever get the senate and WH and make that monstrosity law, we will all get hammered, even the wingnuts that elected them, I always have wondered what makes people vote against their own best interests, which they will be doing with Rounds.

  6. hmr59 2014.04.07

    I don't blame MMR for wanting to repeal the ACA - if you had made a pile in the health insurance biz, wouldn't you resent it a little???

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