On Thursday's The 11th Hour on MSNBC, during a discussion of the debate over ObamaCare repeal, former Time magazine editor Rick Stengel -- also a former Obama administration official -- asserted that Republicans view health care as a "privilege" like a "concierge service" or "entitlement" that should be "starved."
He and substitute host Nicolle Wallace both suggested that Republicans wish to "pick winners and losers" with regard to health care. Fellow guest and daytime MSNBC anchor Stephanie Ruhle claimed that it is "mean" for Republicans to "cut" Medicaid as she also repeated her defense of Planned Parenthood as not just being an abortion provider.
At 11:32 p.m. ET, host Wallace referred to accounts that President Donald Trump had derided one Republican version of health care reform as "mean" as she set up a recent statement by former President Barack Obama. Wallace turned to Stengel and posed:
This President now famously called the House bill "mean," but your old boss -- President Obama -- put out a statement that sounded a little similar. He called it the "fundamental meanness of this bill" -- the Senate bill which would undo his signature law.
She then read from Obama's statement:
I still hope that there are enough Republicans in Congress who remember that public service is not about sport or notching a political win, that there's a reason we all chose to serve in the first place, and that hopefully, it's to make people's lives better, not worse.
The MSNBC host then posed: "Do you think that he is a powerful message with the kinds of voters who are going to be watching how their representatives vote on this?"
After declaring that he "agrees" with Obama, he observed that Democrats view health care as a "human right" that the government should try to provide. He then took aim at Republicans as he added:
Republicans look at it as a privilege, as a concierge service, as an entitlement that needs to be starved. And that's what this bill represents. That's what he means about it being "mean" because it isn't about getting everybody on board the boat where we all benefit -- it's about throwing some people off and giving some people privileges.
After Wallace injected, "Picking winners and losers," he replied, "Yes."
Neither acknowledged the conservative argument that too much government intervention in the delivery of health care can lead to a lower supply of health services and fewer sick people actually receiving health care when they need it.
A bit later, panel member Ruhle began defending Planned Parenthood:
But you know what is getting its funding ripped out? Planned Parenthood. And there's a huge misunderstanding with what Planned Parenthood does. It's not the abortion store --
As Wallace injected, "It's a health care provider," Ruhle continued:
-- and if you take money away from Planned Parenthood it's a pro-life choice. No. It is a basic health care provider for women. If you ask a woman, "Who's your doctor?" they think about their OBGYN before they think about a general practitioner. This is life and death for women.
Stengel then jumped in: "Medicaid pays for half of the births in this country, and they're defunding Medicaid."
Ruhle then complained: "That's mean."
Not surprisingly, being an MSNBC brand of "conservative," Wallace did not challenge the liberal views of her guests.
