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A conversation with Luis Lang
I found Luis Lang’s story intriguing because Mr. Lang reflected many of the everyday Republicans that I know. He is not very political. He sort of goes with the flow. I wrote two posts about Luis Lang. The first is titled “Refused Obamacare & now blames Obama for going bankrupt” and the second is titled “Luis Lang, the anti-Obamacare Republican wants to renounce his Party on TV.”
The above mentioned blog posts were based on online newspaper articles. I gave a small donation to Lang’s GoFundMe account and thus receive his updates by email. In the last email he said most of the media got it fairly wrong. He also said that the article from ThinkProgress was the closest to the truth about his entire situation. Lang said some reporters spent much time with him but then very little of what he said was released.
I had a fairly long conversation with Luis Lang. The only portion I cut out of the audio below is his phone number, otherwise it is uncut. I told Mr. Lang I would do that.
Luis Lang was nothing like I expected. He was gregarious and funny. Unlike what most articles implied, he was very apolitical. He knew very little about Obamacare and did not have the strong opinions implied by the article.
Luis Lang was just one of millions of Americans who did not have insurance. The reality is he could have afforded Obamacare but just did not signup after having initial signup problems. While his disgust with Obamacare was likely influenced by his then Republican proclivity, he was no Right Winger.
Mr. Lang is a Republican who supports gay marriage, women’s reproductive rights, and other ‘Liberal’ tenets. His ordeal forced him to examine healthcare in more detail and he now believes healthcare should be a human right.
The impression that was given by the early news stories made Lang appear like a Right Wing ideologue. That he is not. He is just another citizen that made a few mistakes. He accepted reality unlike Arizona County Sheriff Richard Mack who had a similar story but continue to believe that Obamacare is simply wrong.
I will be interviewing Luis Lang on my KPFT 90.1 FM Politics Done Right radio show at 3:00 PM Central time on Thursday May 21st, 2015. You can see the vlogcast here and the podcast here.
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