The marathon Town Hall that Trumpcare villain New Jersey Republican Rep. Tom MacArthur did the other day is filled with serious citizen concerns and badly informed answers (at best) and outright lies (at worst) given by Rep. MacArthur. One that stuck out because of how reasoned and simple was a man named "Derek," who confronted Rep. MacArthur on the preexisting condition issue. He did not raise his voice, though he had a powerful presence.
My name is Derek, I’m from Point Pleasant, I’m from that small sliver of a town that is in your district. At 23-years-old I was diagnosed with a pretty serious heart condition. it’s permanent, I’ll be on medication for the rest of my life. Fortunately, at the time I was employed and I’ve had continuous coverage ever since. And so when the ACA was passed I was pretty grateful because at that point it was a preexisting condition—you don’t think about that stuff at 23. But it was a preexisting condition and it became protected under the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, and I didn’t think I would ever have to worry about it again.
Now I’m 39, I have three young children, am happily married. And this is your healthcare bill. It was dead in the water. It could have stayed dead in the water, but now it’s the MacArthur Amendment that brought this thing forward. It was done; and to your credit, you’re a compromiser, you kinda left the Tuesday group, you pushed over to kinda join the conservatives, and you got something passed very very quickly—and so I understand that I’m going to continue to be covered because I have continuous coverage; but what I’m worried about is, that if I lose my job, i’m suddenly no longer in the market, I’m no longer covered. My Governor, who is not a friend of people like me right now, decides to opt out—what happens?
I mean I don’t know. This is something very real. I mean, I have people who tell me ‘Don’t worry you live in New Jersey, worry about, you know, people in other states are gonna—don’t live in Texas.” But this is something that is very real. This is my life. And so when you talk about healthcare coverage like this, when you talk about eight billion dollars to fund a “high risk pool,” and you say “don’t worry you already have coverage, you’re Okay, there’s no portability to that. If you lose your job, and hey I’m fortunate—unless you heard a rumor—I’m gonna be able to keep my job, but what happens, there are going to be millions of people who lose their job and their suddenly out of the system; and when they come back in, they’re not getting back in.
Without healthcare coverage, I’m dead! I’m dead! I can’t afford it without healthcare coverage and I’m blessed! How do I look my kids in the eyes at that point and say “Hey, I’m sorry kids, Dad has a heaert condition and we’re either gonna go bankrupt—hopefully we qualify for Medicare, which is about to get totally revoked as those medicaid expansion cuts begin to get phased out—but what happens to people? And maybe I’m lucky and I keep it. But there are millions of people that are just like me, and they lose portability and they can’t get back into the system once they’re out. That’s a problem!
And this is your Amendment, sir. You brought it back with that Amendment … you own it.
I’d take one Derek to every 238 Republicans.