A GOP Congressman Had To Ask A Reporter To ‘Explain’ The Healthcare Bill To Him…After He Voted For It!

Even though he voted in favor of the American Health Care Act (AHCA)–aka Trumpcare–on Thursday, New York GOP Congressman Chris Collins had to ask a newspaper reporter to explain the bill to him.

Not long after the bill passed the House, Collins had told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that he was well aware of what was in the AHCA bill because his aides had read it and summarized it for him.

But when Collins was being interviewed by a reporter from the Buffalo News, he proved he had lied to Blitzer.

Specifically, when the reporter asked Collins about a provision of the bill that directly impacted residents of New York, the Congressman asked for the reporter to explain the measure to him:

“Told by a Buffalo News reporter that the state’s largest loss of federal funds under the bill would be $3 billion annually that goes to the state’s Essential Health Plan, Collins said: ‘Explain that to me.’”

The Essential Health plan is a so-called “carve-out” provision located in the Obamacare legislation which lets states provide low-cost health plans to low-and-middle-income residents who aren’t able to qualify for Medicaid. At least 19,000 people in Collins’ district benefit from the plan, which would be completely eliminated under Trumpcare.

Asked again about the Trumpcare bill and Essential Health plan, Collins said:

“It doesn’t surprise me for you to tell me that there were two states in the nation that were taking advantage of some other waiver program and New York was one of the two states.”

And yet it did surprise him enough to have to ask for the program to be explained to him. In other words, he had no idea how the bill would impact some of the most vulnerable people in his district because he doesn’t give a damn about them. Low-income voters don’t give massive campaign contributions like insurance and pharmaceutical companies do. But many of them do vote, and Congressman Collins now has to explain to them why he decided their health is expendable.

This article was originally published by the same author at LiberalAmerica.org

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