Sky News Worldwide TV yesterday:
Strategist clash on live air over ‘failed’ Obamacare
ByLIZZIE STROMME
PUBLISHED:14:01, Fri, Nov 11, 2016| UPDATED:14:25, Sat, Nov 12, 2016
Ron Phillips appeared exasperated during aSky Newsinterview after Democratic strategist Bob Weiner insisted the flaws in the Affordable Care Act were the fault of the Republican Party.
During President Barack Obama’s first term in office, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, more commonly known as Obamacare, became a federal statute.
Enacted on March 23, 2010, the aim of the legislation was to help individuals get health insurance through extending Medicaid eligibility and offering cost assistance.
However, Republicans have widely criticised the Act and President-elect Donald Trump has vowed that “either Obamacare will be amended, or repealed and replaced”.
Branding the 2016 Presidential Election America’s Brexit,MrPhillips said the legislation needed great reform urgently.
He said: “The Americans just went to the polls and voted in what is the American Brexit.
“And part of that was the Affordable Care Act, the Obamacare piece of legislation.
“People got hit with incredible rate hikes, breaking families, people were being fined by the IRS, the enforcement arm of the Affordable Care Act.
“They are being hunted down by the IRS. There is going to begreatreform that has to occur and it is going to occur.”
Taking the Republican totask,MrWeiner lashed back by saying the flaws in the system had been created by his party.
He said: “With all due respect that is a strange answer when it was the Republicans who stopped the fixes like the subsidies, likeexpansionof Medicaid, the issues which now the Republicans have to govern and they claim they will replace and repair in addition to fixing Obamacare.
“Now they actually have to do those things.
"And when I hosted the Republican congressional campaign chair and I asked what he would replace it with, it was the same provisions that are in Obamacare now.
"There is a bit of hypocrisy in this whole issue of Obamacare."
The Democrat's statement clearly hit a nerve with Mr. Phillips as he launched a fiery tirade in which he blasted that the system was broken.
“This election was based on a whole litany of issues from immigration, open borders, complete loss of our national security on the borders.
“The healthcare in itself, you’re looking at a system that has failed. I mean, how many times do you have to look at a system that has failed. It is bankrupt.
The systems are breaking down state by state, they can’t afford it. I don’t understand how you can throw roses on this or politics and say this is a good system,it'snot a good system. Socialism doesn’t work.”
MrWeiner simply retorted: “It’s a private sector system.”