Fox News Shepard Smith has become one of the few hosts on that station that is attempting to be a serious journalist. Smith grilled the Republican Congressman and did not allow his platitudes to influence the questions. Suffice it to say the Congressman likely upset many from his base.
Fox News Shepard Smith doing journalism
Fox News Shepard Smith forced Congressman Buddy Carter (R-GA) to answer the difficult questions on Obamacare repeal, and the Congressman failed. Early in the interview, Smith asked if the Republican healthcare bill will bring the cost down. The Congressman said it would.
“We feel like we have a plan here,” Carter said. “We are very confident that his plan will work and bring about what our goal is accessible and affordable patient-centered healthcare.”
Shepard Smith did not just buy the platitude, hope, or expectation the Congressman was pushing.
“Of course the only way to know what this is going to cost is a system which we have used in the Unites States for a long time,” Shapard Smith said. “There is an office as you know sir, for our viewers, called the Congressional Budget Office, the CBO. It’s its job, as a nonpartisan group to look at a bill that Congress is trying to pass, work through it, figure out what it is going to cost, and report back. You are pushing this through and will vote on it in the two committees before the Congressional Budget Office scores it. So right now we don’t know what it would cost, and we do not know how many people will lose insurance. Right?”
“You are exactly right,” the Congressman was forced to reply. “We don’t know what they are going to say.”
“Why not wait,” Smith interjected.
“Because Obamacare is failing,” the Congressman responded with the obvious GOP untruth. “We cannot stand idly by and watch the healthcare system in America, the greatest healthcare system in the world, totally implode. We’ve got to step in and do the responsible thing.”
Of course, if our system were, in fact, the best for everyone in America, our outcomes would not lag most industrialized nations. In fact, Canada is the place living the American Dream most Americans are yearning for and unable to attain because of the draconian healthcare, education, and criminal justice systems in America.
The Congressman said that before the final vote, they would wait for the CBO score.
Smith pointed out that many Republicans are defecting from the bill. The Congressman offered some gratuitous statements that show what Republicans really feel about people in need.
“Obamacare added twenty million people to the insurances rolls,” the Congressman said. “14.5 million of those were able-bodied adults who were added onto Medicaid, a safety net that was never intended for able-bodied adults. We’ve got to roll back that expansion. That is not what Medicaid was intended ti be for. And that is not what we should be using it for. ”
It is clear the Congressman does not realize that a large percentage of his constituents because of the income inequality created by neoliberal policies (Republican and Blue Dog Democratic policies) that created commoditized workers, need Medicaid.
Shepard Smith also called out the new Republican Bill for its punitiveness against those who miss continuous payment of insurance premiums. The Congressman showed his disdain for the poor by making it seem that most who miss insurance payments are crooks.
We must keep calling our politicians, Republicans and Democrats alike. We must keep the protests at their offices. We must not allow the Republican decimation of our healthcare system to pass.