"They Just Don’t Give a Damn"

A few days ago, Current TV invited Alan Grayson on the air, to discuss Governor Rick Scott’s plan to reject federal money to provide healthcare to the poor. Here is what they said:

ELIOT SPITZER: Democrat Alan Grayson was a forthright speaker when he served in Congress and he still is today. It is a pleasure to welcome to the program former Florida congressman, Alan Grayson. Alan, thank you for joining us.
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ALAN GRAYSON: Thank you.

SPITZER: You know I've got to ask you this question. You have seen what the House of Representatives has been doing today [referring to its 33rd vote to repeal Obamacare]. Do you, in fact, really want to return to that chamber?

GRAYSON: Yes, because I still have hope that we can collectively make our lives better. That we can solve the problems that the country is facing. I do understand that not everybody feels that way. I do understand that there are powerful forces that are trying to prevent that. But I still have hope that things can be better and that we can solve our problems.
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SPITZER: Well, optimism springs eternally in the hearts of the wise and so I applaud you for that. Having watched what the House has been doing, it is sometimes, there are just moments in despair. Now you are in Florida, from Florida. Your governor, Rick Scott, is one of the I think six governors primarily in the southeastern part of the country going out to Texas, as far west as Texas, governors who are saying we don't want to participate in the healthcare reform act, even if the federal government showers us with money. Rick Scott, who was the executive of a company mired in healthcare fraud when he was there. What is his logic? Why is he doing this? What is your perspective on this?

GRAYSON: Well, his logic is simple: personal corruption. He is trying to force poor people to go to his healthcare clinic chain, Solantic, and hand over what little money they have to him, in lieu of having the federal government pay for an expansion of Medicaid.
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It’s just naked cruelty and corruption. Nothing more than that. And frankly, it's something that’s becoming more and more associated with the right wing and the Republican Party every day.

SPITZER:You know, I'm glad to see, Congressman, you have not lost your capacity to go right to the heart of the matter. Pull no punches and call it like you see it. Something that endeared you to many when you were in Congress. Obviously not everybody has lived through the sort of slings and arrows of your rather direct and forthright comments. In Florida, if I am correct, 21% of the public does not have health insurance. And so the question, and we've had this conversation just a few minutes ago with one of your former colleagues, when those 21% go to the hospital, get care, who pays for it?
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GRAYSON: Well, the fact is that they can’t get that care. If you have cancer there’s no hospital in the country that’s going to give you free chemotherapy. It’s just not going to happen. All across the country there are forty thousand people, every year, who die because they don’t have health coverage. There’s three thousand in Florida alone. We have the third highest rate in the country. And frankly, a lot of those people would be getting the care they need if people like Rick Scott would simply cooperate and stop trying to pick fights with Barack Obama at the expense of the people of Florida.
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There are literally thousands of people who will live if Medicaid is expanded in Florida, and die if it isn't. And their blood will be on Rick Scott's hands.
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SPITZER: You were right to put this first and foremost in the context of the healthcare that is denied -- and the unbelievable costs to people, not financial costs, in terms of health that they will suffer; the consequences of not getting the healthcare they need. There was also the financial piece. Those individuals who go to an emergency room for instance and do get care when they are uninsured, that cost is borne by the hospitals and by the state. So states that turn down their involvement, their participation in the Medicaid program as expanded by this bill are giving away, and sacrificing huge amounts of money, and taxpayers in Florida are going to have to pay for that bill.

GRAYSON: Yes, in part, but many people will not get the care they need and they will die. Many people will remain sick. Many people will simply not be able to get healthy again because of the problems they face. And bear in mind that for the first three years, the federal government is picking up every single penny of the cost of expanding Medicaid to fifteen million poor people who can’t see a doctor when they are sick. The federal government is picking up every cent of that cost, and then in the following seven years, ninety percent of the cost. And on account of the simple fact that they don't like Obama and therefore they don't like Obamacare, Republican governors are engaging in a sadistic -- sadistic-- form of public policymaking by denying these people their care.
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SPITZER: You are exactly right. I think the number, I may be off on this, but I think the number is that Florida would benefit to the tune of about $20 billion in federal expenditures to cover those healthcare costs that you are talking about. More important than the dollars, as you keep pointing out quite rightly, is the care that individuals who desperately need it would be able to get. It would also create 65,000 jobs is the number calculated in Florida alone. Obviously something that is important to your state. What does Rick Scott say is his alternative and this whole “repeal and replace” [Republican] mantra? We know how fraudulent in a way that phrase is because there is no “replace” plan that has been represented in Washington by the Republicans. Does Rick Scott have anything to replace the healthcare reform act?

GRAYSON: I said more than two years ago that the Republican healthcare plan is: don't get sick, and if you do get sick, die quickly. That was true then, it is true now, and it always will be true. They just don't give a damn. It's that simple.
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SPITZER: And to talk raw politics for a minute, you are running for election in a new congressional district. You are out there campaigning, very hard as is indeed your nature. Does the public understand this message that you are articulating?Is the public responding to what you are saying?

GRAYSON: Yes, they are. I mean the polling in our district shows that most people are in favor of what is called “Obamacare,” because we have twenty percent of the public in Florida that doesn't have health insurance -- the third highest rate in the country. Forty percent of Latinos cannot see a doctor when they are sick in Florida. We have three million people in Florida who can’t see a doctor when they are sick and that has to end.
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SPITZER: As you point out, twenty-one percent uninsured in Florida. Texas, one of those few states, with a higher rate, twenty-five percent. And, of course, Rick Perry, equally ridiculous in his opposition to healthcare in refusing to participate in the federal plan. Former Florida congressman Alan Grayson, great to have you on the program.

GRAYSON: Thank you.

Isn’t it great that someone in politics can go “right to the heart of the matter”? That someone “pulls no punches?" That someone "calls it as he sees it?" And as YOU see it? Click here, and show your support for that someone today.
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