When Senator Kyl of Arizona was asked on Meet The Press if it is "a necessity to tackle the fact that there are more and more Americans who die because they don't have access to health insurance?" Senator Kyl replied, "I'm not sure that it's a fact that more and more people die because they don't have health insurance. But because they don't have health insurance, the care is not delivered in the best and most efficient way."
Amazing! Amazing that such a person continues to be elected to the Senate. Amazing and very disappointing.
I assume that Senator Kyl is aware of the recent Harvard research study that estimated that 45,000 Americans die each year because they lack access to health insurance. Can it be that Kyl is so uninformed on the key legislation in Congress? Does he not read? Does he not hear? Does he not care? Ah, yes! Perhaps he simply does not care.
Is there other evidence that Kyl doesn't care? Yes, indeed! Kyl recently joked that he doesn't need maternity care while he was arguing that insurance companies should not be required to provide certain types of coverage. Really? Do you think any of the women, whose insurance providers will not cover maternity care, thought Kyl's remark was as funny as he did? Since 60% of the insurance companies do not provide maternity care coverage, this is no laughing matter to a lot of women.
Kyl doesn't seem to care much about women's issues. Kyl (and Arizona's other senator, John McCain) recently voted against an amendment that would have provided legal protection for women who are sexually assaulted in the workplace. Protection against sexual assault, like maternity care, is not a personal issue for Senator Kyl so as far as he is concerned it's not an issue worth addressing.
Who in blogdom will offer a defense for Senator Kyl? Is Kyl's perspective regarding health care reform fair to his constituents? I should ask is it "fair to all Americans" since his vote on reform will impact all of us.
2 comments:
I think that politicians influenced by lobbyists begin with a position on an issue and spend the rest of their elected life rationalizing and defending their position.
Even if a politician's vote would have been favorable to an interest group without the influence of a lobbyist or contributions from the interest group, there is a risk of a conflict of interest whenever a lobbyist is involved or large contributions are accepted.
Jon Kyl's ridiculous argument in opposition of requiring insurance companies to provide maternity coverage suggests to me that his opinion is improperly influenced.
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