On her 12 p.m. ET hour MSNBC show on Friday, host Andrea Mitchell, the left-wing partisan masquerading as a journalist, used efforts to roll back onerous ObamaCare regulations as an excuse to smear Republicans as sexist. Meet the Press host Chuck Todd gleefully joined in the GOP bashing: “...you think you have a gender gap problem now? You haven't seen anything yet.”
Mitchell balked at Republicans lawmakers calling for the repeal of ObamaCare’s essential health benefits mandates: “I just want to say, of all the things that have come up in the debate in the last 24-48 hours, the thing that really strikes me is these male members of Congress saying, ‘Well, why do I have to pay for maternity leave?’” She replied with this nasty line: “And my answer would be...‘why do I have to pay for prostate cancer checkups?’”
The Democratic Party shill then proclaimed: “If you start picking and choosing from a menu of what disease you might get down the road? The insurance doesn't work that way.”
Actually, what doesn’t work are the ways in which ObamaCare takes away the ability of consumers to find an insurance plan that best suits their medical needs. In a 2012 report, the Heritage Foundation’s Kathryn Nix detailed the “Ten Ways Obamacare Limits Patient Choice.” In the article, the health policy analyst explained:
Obamacare requires health plans to cover all preventive services ranked A or B (recommended) by the United States Preventive Services Task Force and does not allow them to share these costs with policyholders. This means that all patients will be forced to pay for this coverage through higher premiums. This additional expense will mean that some patients miss out on the coverage they actually need. As health policy expert Scott Gottlieb explains, “Many services that get ‘Cs’ or ‘Ds’ – such as screening for ovarian or testicular cancer – could get nixed from coverage entirely.”
Nix went on to note: “Special-interest groups will most certainly lobby for inclusion of generous benefits, and the more expansive the ‘essential’ benefits package becomes, the more it will cost. The coverage ‘floor’ will become the ceiling, and Americans will have fewer options.”
Rather than challenge Mitchell’s liberal rhetoric with any of these actual facts, Todd decided to pile on the GOP instead: “And this is what political advisers are saying to many of these members. ‘You're going to have – you think you have a gender gap problem now? You haven't seen anything yet.’”
Seizing on a picture of President Trump meeting with the House Freedom Caucus on Thursday to try and hammer out a deal on health care reform, Todd claimed:
...optic-wise, the meeting this week when the President met with the Freedom Caucus in the Roosevelt Room and they're surrounded by his aides, and Kellyanne Conway wasn't in there. Because guess what? If she was, she'd have been the only woman in the picture. And it was not a good moment that at a moment when they're making the decision – there's that photo – and they’re making the decision to basically say, “No, we're not going to have gender neutrality when it comes to health insurance basics here.” That picture is not going to sit well with many women in this country.
Despite Todd asserting that White House aide Kellyanne Conway was not in the meeting, the picture that appeared on screen as he was speaking clearly showed her in the room, standing right next to the President.
Here is a transcript of the March 24 exchange:
12:19 PM ET
(...)
ANDREA MITCHELL: Chuck, I just want to say, of all the things that have come up in the debate in the last 24-48 hours, the thing that really strikes me is these male members of Congress saying, “Well, why do I have to pay for maternity leave?” And my answer would be, “Why do you – why do I have to pay for prostate cancer checkups?”
CHUCK TODD: I have to say, the most striking photo –
MITCHELL: If you start picking and choosing from a menu of what disease you might get down the road? The insurance doesn't work that way.
TODD: And this is what political advisers are saying to many of these members. “You're going to have – you think you have a gender gap problem now? You haven't seen anything yet.”
And you know, optic-wise, the meeting this week when the President met with the Freedom Caucus in the Roosevelt Room and they're surrounded by his aides, and Kellyanne Conway wasn't in there. Because guess what? If she was, she'd have been the only woman in the picture. And it was not a good moment that at a moment when they're making the decision – there's that photo – and they’re making the decision to basically say, “No, we're not going to have gender neutrality when it comes to health insurance basics here.” That picture is not going to sit well with many women in this country.
MITCHELL: Where’s K.T. McFarland and Kellyanne Conway when you need them?
(...)
