Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) tore into Republican colleagues on MSNBC for projecting concern about rural hospital closures, immediately after passing a bill for hundreds of billions in Medicaid cuts that put their funding at risk in the first place.
This comes as Markey introduces legislation to further universal health care, messaging legislation which is considered unlikely to pass in a Republican-controlled Congress.
"Senator Markey, you were one of the Democrats who introduced this health care bill," said anchor Antonia Hylton. "What would it do? And do you expect any buy-in at this point from your Republican colleagues?"
"Well, the Republicans just voted two weeks ago to have a $1 trillion cut in Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act and Medicare, and it's going to have a devastating impact on rural hospitals across the country," said Markey. "I released a report two months ago that 338 rural hospitals could go out of business because of these cuts that the Republicans just voted on. And now the Republicans are returning with crocodile tears in their eyes about how concerned they are about rural hospitals."
"Well, they knew that going in, and they also knew the impact on community health centers," said Markey. "They also knew the impact on nursing homes. They also knew the impact on Planned Parenthood. They also knew the impact that it would have upon the tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of hospital workers who will be laid off. They knew all that, and now they are saying that they're concerned about it."
Markey's new legislation, he continued, simply "says we have to give more power back to the states. We have to have individual states, have the ability to create a health care system that does, in fact, provide for every single resident of that state."
"But the Republicans are absolutely adamant about keeping the cuts, no matter what they say, because they need the money for the tax cuts for the billionaires," he added. "That's what this is all about. It's a transfer of money, especially from the poorest and the sickest and the most elderly in our society, into the hands of the richest, who are already benefiting from our great country. So that's what their whole plan is. And there is precisely zero chance that the Republican Party is going to come back and all of a sudden fund rural hospitals in our country. It is not going to happen."
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