Woodall speaking to his base at a Freedom Works debate.
Freshman congressman Rob Woodall, (R-GA) laid out the Republican ideology in very stark terms yesterday, in what Steve Benen
calls a display of "candor, callousness, and conservatism." Ryan Grim has the
original story at HuffPo.
[Woodall told] seniors at a local town hall that they ought not look to the government to provide health care for the elderly just because their private employer doesn't offer health benefits for retirees.
A Woodall constituent raised a practical obstacle to obtaining coverage in the private market within the confines of an employer-based health insurance system: What happens when you retire?
"The private corporation that I retired from does not give medical benefits to retirees," the woman told the congressman in video captured a local Patch reporter in Dacula, Ga.
"Hear yourself, ma'am. Hear yourself," Woodall told the woman. "You want the government to take care of you, because your employer decided not to take care of you. My question is, 'When do I decide I'm going to take care of me?'"
....
Another woman at the Woodall town hall told the congressman that it was unrealistic to think that the market would provide affordable policies to the elderly.
Another woman told the congressman that Medicare provides peace of mind to her children, who would be on the hook for her care otherwise, much as they were before the social safety net was stitched together.
"I'm fine with my Medicare, and my children and my grand children -- my children especially -- would have a lot of heartburn if they know that I'm not on Medicare, because that voucher is not going to go very far,” said the woman....
Woodall suggested that the woman concerned about vouchers might find the type of health care system she and her children approve of in Canada or another industrialized nation.
"If you want a socialized health care program, there are lots of places to find that," he said. "But, for your children's sake, I beg you: There aren't many places to find the freedom to succeed by the sweat of your brow like we have here."
All of which is pretty damned ironic when you find out that Woodall has been paid by taxpayers for most of professional career, hardly working up a sweat. And when it comes to healthcare, he has it pretty cushy: "Woodall was chief of staff to former Rep. John Linder (R-Ga.), a job taxpayers shelled out more than $100,000 a year for in 2002, rising to more than $150,000 in 2009, plus gold-plated health and retirement benefits. Woodall, who has taken his former boss's seat, now makes $174,000 a year with generous benefits."
He's got his, and that's what matters. If you happen to work for a company that doesn't provide medical benefits to retirees, then that's your problem and obviously not his concern, nor he thinks, should it be the concern of the government you pay your taxes to. The taxes that pay for his benefits. As Benen says, this is the GOP philosophy in a nutshell, "the Republican agenda in stark, cold terms."