Always the party of personal responsibility — until it comes to their own personal responsibility — Jason Lewis (R-Loserville, MN) of Minnesota’s Second District runs his mouth and sends what little esteem, integrity, and dignity he had remaining completely careening over a cliff in an op-ed published today in the Wall Street Journal: Who Lost The House? John McCain.
Yup. On Veteran’s Day, Lewis chooses to attack and blame a man who was arguably the greatest war hero of the Vietnam Era, whining that ever since The Maverick gave his ‘Thumbs Down’ signal on the Senate floor, the die was cast against the GOP:
McCain’s last-minute decision prompted a “green wave” of liberal special-interest money, which was used to propagate false claims that the House plan “gutted coverage for people with pre-existing conditions.” That line was the Democrats’ most potent attack in the midterms.
It was endlessly repeated by overt partisans in the media. An especially egregious column in Minneapolis’s Star Tribune asserted the AHCA would turn back the clock so that “insurers could consider sexual assaults and even pregnancy [to be] pre-existing conditions.” In fact, the bill prohibited sex discrimination and stated: “Nothing in this Act shall be construed as permitting insurers to limit access to health coverage for individuals with pre-existing conditions.”
Gosh, if the Republicans had just been allowed to destroy the ACA, everything would have gone swimmingly for them. He’s right, nothing in the AHCA would have limited coverage, but it didn’t guarantee it, nor specify that it couldn’t cost more. Insurers would’ve done the GOP’s work of killing off the poorest and the sickest.
The fact that Lewis will lay political defeat on a dead man’s still-warm grave says all you need to know about him.