Rep. Tom Reed (R-NY), like many of his GOP colleagues in the House and Senate, faced angry crowds at his most recent town hall. But unlike his colleagues, Reed managed to put his foot in his mouth when it came to the biggest issue at hand: healthcare. According to local news station WHEC, Reed said that he believes “healthcare and health insurance are two separate things” – a comment made to a crowd already angry about his vote to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. “You made your decision in spite of your constituents,” a voter said to Reed during the town hall. “And not based upon what your constituents need.”
In an interview with portal KnowMyRepublican.com, Reed argued that, despite what Americans may think about Obamacare, “it is not a good enough healthcare system.” “I know the bigger picture keeps eluding folks because it takes quite a bit of brain power to process everything that’s going on here, but let me try to paint the picture for you just a bit,” he said. “The reason why everybody’s so upset that we’re trying to replace the Affordable Care Act is because they think that whatever we come up with instead is going to cost them a lot more money. The truth is, there’s two ways of looking at it: there’s what it looks like on the receiving end of the program, and then there’s the providing end. In short, people think Obamacare is good because they get free or cheap health insurance. But they don’t see how much it bleeds the budget on the other end.”
He continued, “Now, I certainly understand the need to be concerned about these things. After all, I’m a citizen of this country too and I am faced with the same problems as everybody else. But the simple fact is, if we don’t do this, if we don’t replace the Affordable Care Act with something cheaper, it is going to end up ruining the budget and we’ll be faced with another economic recession. But, that’s not all there is to it. You see, of course we care about the people of America. We’re not just going to leave them high and dry. Now, what I’m suggesting – and what everybody seems to have a hard time understanding – is, yes, we make the new healthcare system a bit more expensive, but there’s also an upside. And that’s increasing the military budget.”
“If we increase the military budget, we end up buying better and more effective equipment and weapons for our soldiers when we send them off half way across the world to defend our democracy. The thing is, more lethal soldiers equal a safer country back home. Therefore, if we increase the military budget, we will instantly make the poor at home feel safer than ever before. In turn, they’ll stop trying to steal our money because they’re too scared for their own health. We have to be able to think about the big picture, about things on a larger scale. If they just stop for a second and try to understand what I’m saying, they’ll realize that we’re essentially trying to help them, too – only, we’re going about it more indirectly as opposed to what’s being done right now. Donald Trump is trying to help America, only unlike Barack Obama, he actually cares about what happens to all of its citizens and not just the poor,” he concluded.
