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Gutting Health Care Will Kill Americans

What is our government for if not to ensure that we live?

Released on 03/13/2017


(drum music)

I'm Keith Olbermann and this is The Resistance.

To Donald Trump, my father died seven years ago,

March 13th, 2010.

He died after seven months in hospitals

and six months in the surgical intensive care unit

and after a fight against death so extraordinary,

that it caused that chief of that unit

to mistake him for a professionally trained athlete

when, in fact, he hadn't exercised since 1951

and when I told him about it, my dad laughed

even though there is a breathing tube down his throat.

He died with my sister and I

having to make the decision to let him go

and he died with her holding his hand

and me reading him his favorite James Thurber story

and him, I swear, waiting until this very long story

was over and only then profoundly sighing and leaving us.

He died leaving me a hospital bill for six months

of 24-hour day surgical intensive care

and other month in standard care,

one four-hour long operation,

and thousands of procedures and scans

and drugs and consultations,

he left me a bill, if I remember correctly,

of approximately $1,000,

and most of that was for a television he had rented

for a few days early on.

My father had a little private policy

and something he got for being in the army

and government issued insurance, Trump,

a thing called Medicare.

Our out-of-pocket costs for his stays

in the hospital about $5 a day.

He died after seven months in which we talked everyday

as the debate raged around us,

and as we could hear the practical impact it had

on the lives and finances of the other patients

and families in that hospital,

of what was then called Healthcare Reform

or Insurance Reform,

in which shortly after my dad's death,

became known as the Affordable Care Act,

and less officially, Obamacare.

Obamacare which Trump, you idiot,

and that idiot, Ryan, and this liar, Price,

and that liar, Chaffetz, now want to undo

because confronted with an independent calculation

that repeal by you, Republicans,

will end insurance for, at least, 15 million Americans

and asked how many will lose their coverage under this plan,

this sniveling little man, Ryan,

who sucks up to you says,

I can't answer that question, it's up to people.

People are going to do what they want to do

with their lives because we believe

in individual freedom in this country.

Individual freedom, like the freedom to die

because you don't have health insurance.

The way roughly 122 Americans died

because they didn't have health insurance everyday

before the ACA was passed as my father was dying.

Individual freedom, Trump.

Go to hell, Paul Ryan.

Individual freedom, Trump,

like freedom from taxes for the rich.

The joint committee on taxation

which is a non-partisan arm

that crunches numbers for congress

calculated that the Republican gutting of healthcare

that you are leading, Trump,

will, in the next decade, reduce the taxes

of those making a million or more a year

by 157 billion dollars.

Individual freedom, Trump,

or is this condescending jackass Chaffetz put it,

Americans have choices and they've gotta make a choice,

so maybe rather than getting that new iPhone

that they just love

and wanna go spend hundreds of dollars on,

maybe they should invest in their own healthcare.

The price of an iPhone would not cover those few days

my father rented that hospital television,

nevermind something like cancer drugs or surgery,

or the price you're actually billed

to have your father officially declared dead.

Go to hell, Jason Chaffetz.

Individual freedom, Trump,

like the freedom to end the insurance

of 700,000 new Medicaid recipients

added just since the reform of 2010

just in Ohio for the Republican governor there, John Kasich,

kick them off and it said,

throw them an insurance tax credit of $3,000

and as Kasich asks rhetorically,

What kind of insurance you gotta buy for $3,000?

That's individual freedom or as this liar and conman,

your Health and Human Services secretary, Tom Price, put it,

I firmly believe that nobody will be worse off financially

and, of course, Trump is right,

if by nobody, he means, insurance companies

and Republican donors and the wealthy.

Go to hell, Tom Price.

Individual freedom, Trump,

like your budget director insisting you are focused

on healthcare, not insurance coverage,

as if when they hand you your bill at your hospital

or your doctor's office, you could hand it back and say,

Ha, I'm not focused on care,

I'm not focused on paying you.

Trump, you said on September 27th, 2015,

Everybody has got to be covered,

I'm going to take care of everybody.

Trump you said of February 19th, 2016,

You're gonna end up with great healthcare

for a fraction of the price

and that's gonna take place immediately.

Trump, you said this in January 15th of this year,

We're going to have insurance for everybody.

Only now, your budget director says, because you, Trump,

you don't have the courage to say it yourself.

That quote, insurance, for everybody,

that means healthcare, not insurance, which means nothing,

which means everybody, you're on your own.

Go to hell, Trump.

Months before my dad died seven years ago,

the likelihood that he would became tangible to me

and in that hospital, everyday, twice a day,

as we talked about that,

and we talked about Healthcare Reform,

it began to dawn on me what we were all really debating.

I wrote much of what follows here in October 2009,

it is true again because of you, Trump,

since you evidently think you are immortal,

have a sane, grown up person,

explain to you what this next part means.

This ultimately is about death,

about preventing it, about fighting it,

about resisting it, about grabbing hold of everything

and anything to forestall it and postpone it,

even though we know that the force will overcome us all,

always will, always has.

Healthcare is at its core

about improving the odds of life,

in its struggle against death,

of extending that game which we will all lose

each and every one of us onto eternity,

extending in another year or month, or second,

this is the primary directive of life,

the essence of our will as human beings.

And when we go to a doctor's office or a hospital

or storefront clinic in a ghetto,

we are expressing this fundamental cry of humanity.

I want to live, I want my child to live,

I want my wife to live, I want my father to live,

I want my neighbor to live, I want that stranger,

I do not know and never will know, to live.

And there is the essence of what this is,

what in the eternal list of priorities precedes health?

What more obvious role could government have

than the defense of the life of each citizen?

We cannot stop every germ that seeks to harm us


but we could try, damn it,

and government's essential role in that effort,

facilitate it, reduce its costs,

broaden its availability, improve my health and yours

seems ultimately self-explanatory.

We want to live.

What is government for if not to help us to do so?

I issue this warning to you, Trump,

take these steps and you will inherit the wind,

got healthcare in this country

so millionaires can save 16 billion a year in taxes

and you will be killing American citizens.

And before we let you do this, Trump,

we will defend ourselves.

Protests, non-violent resistance, good,

a mass refusal to pay insurance premiums, perhaps, risky,

a general strike against this country, yes,

shut the country down rather than let you kill people.

Healthcare, Trump, is about life and death

and right now, you are on the side of death

and we will not permit this.



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