For those who lose out, there’s what the GOP die-hards call tough love. That’s not love. It’s hate.

[kpete]

Racism and Cruelty Drive GOP Health Care Agenda

By Robert Scheer

...............

The game plan of gutting the Affordable Care Act despite its passage into law and before its positive outcomes are demonstrated can be traced to a “blueprint to defunding Obamacare” initialed by the GOP conservative leadership under the aegis of Heritage Action for America. Ironically that is the political front of the Heritage Foundation, the leading GOP think tank that is credited by some architects of Obamacare as the initial inspiration of their health care program. The difference is that whereas the Heritage Foundation was pushing a mild health care reform based on increased profit for private insurers, as in the plan Mitt Romney introduced in Massachusetts, the Republicans object to the provisions in this president’s program that broaden access for the needy.

They were abetted in this decision by a Supreme Court ruling last year granting the states the option of not expanding Medicaid to cover the uninsured under the new act. As a consequence, 8 million of our fellow Americans with annual incomes of less than $19,530 for a family of three have been prevented from obtaining the health care coverage that we as a nation decided to grant them.

...........................

In the end, this is a replay of the civil rights drama that gripped the nation more than half a century ago, but back then the Republican Party, following the enlightened leadership of Dwight Eisenhower, was on the humanitarian side of the equation. Now the elected leaders of a party that has been on the side of emancipation since the presidency of Abraham Lincoln acts to deny the basic human right to life-sustaining health care to the Southern progeny of slaves. As the Times study noted: “In all, 6 out of 10 blacks live in the states not expanding Medicaid. In Mississippi, 56 percent of all poor and uninsured adults are black, though they account for just 38 percent of the population.”

But that also means that almost 44 percent of the poor and uninsured in Mississippi are white, and the gutting of this program that hurts them is evidence of the false consciousness that informs racist appeals. As the Times points out, someone, black or white, making $11,000 a year frying chicken in a convenience store falls into the gap of making too much to qualify for the state’s existing Medicaid program but not enough to be subsidized under the new health care plan as the state defines it. For those who lose out, there’s what the Republican die-hards call tough love. That’s not love. It’s hate.

The rest:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/racism_and_cruelty_drive_gop_health_care_agenda_20131008

[CrispyQ]

1. A mean, hateful party.

I try not to let politics influence my feelings about people, but I'm beginning to question the character of all repubs I know. How can they continue to support this party?

[nightscanner59]

3. Because they don't listen to anyone but

Faux news, Lush Rimbaugh and other "benefit only the good, christian-rich" pundits. I'm surrounded with them where I'm contracted for the moment, and they wear me out with their paranoid rants, devoid of facts.

[uponit7771]

7. +1

[Solly Mack]

2. K&R

[SoapBox]

4. + 100

[freshwest]

5. Hate it is ..

[bluesbassman]

6. Although I don't believe he was bright enough to map this out, Reagan was instrumental in the shift.

His policies in California showed a mean streak and disdain for anyone less fortunate. When he became President, his attitude toward those less fortunate and his exaltation of wealth and privilege played on the basest emotion of greed in the rank and file amongst the Republican Party.

[abq e streeter]

8. Well said,Bluesbassman.Reagan was a disaster from which this country may never fully recover

yet is worshiped to this day by millions (and I DO blame much of our party's "leadership" over the ensuing decades for not forcefully and stridently standing strong against the building and perpetuation of the Reagan myth)...
And no accident that he kicked off his campaign for President in Philadelphia,Miss. ...site of the murder of those 3 civil rights workers, talking about (wink, wink), "States' rights".

[Wounded Bear]

9. It has been my experience....

that strident proponents of "tough love" seem to emphasize the tough and forget the love.

[caseymoz]

10. I think the one consistent thread

. . . in Conservatism is hatred. About racism and sexism, most are not even trying to hide it now. I think Patrick Buchanan's ugly sneer has spread across the entire Republican Party.

[ananda]

11. bizarre

That's a very backwards, lookingglass, upsidedown brand of "patriotism," "christianity," and "pro life" values. Maybe we should call the Reeptiles unpatriotic, unchristian, and pro death, which is actually what they are.

[blkmusclmachine]

12. Remember this from the Tea Party/GOPee, 2012:

LET HIM DIE!

LET HIM DIE!

LET HIM DIE!