Republican health care plan is now explicitly “die”

I’m so old I remember how the GOP propaganda machine would go into outrage overdrive when Democrats would point out that Republican “health care plans” largely consisted of ignoring that, as Gen. Turgidson put it in a related context, those plans would result in the US population getting its hair mussed here and there.

In Trumpland, there’s not even a pretense that the plan is anything other than that millions of people who can’t afford health care will die as a result:

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) has doubled down on her dismissive response to worries about GOP legislation that includes huge Medicaid and food assistance cuts.

On Friday, Ernst faced angry constituents at a town hall in Parkersburg, Iowa, with one woman in the crowd yelling, “People will die.”

Ernst replied, “People are not ― well, we all are going to die. So, for heaven’s sakes, folks.”

The retort was met with backlash and mockery. On Saturday afternoon, Ernst addressed the controversy with what may have initially appeared to some to be a genuine apology.

“Hello everyone, I would like to take this opportunity to sincerely apologize for a statement that I made yesterday at my town hall,” Ernst said in a video posted to her Instagram Story.

Ernst’s tone began to shift as the video continued.

“See, I was in the process of answering a question that had been asked by an audience member when a woman who was extremely distraught screamed out, from the back corner of the auditorium, ‘People are going to die!’”

It soon became crystal clear that Ernst had no intention of delivering a real apology.

“And I made an incorrect assumption that everyone in the auditorium understood that yes, we are all going to perish from this earth,” Ernst said. “So I apologize. And I’m really, really glad that I did not have to bring up the subject of the tooth fairy as well.”

OK Ernst does actually have an alternative plan:

In a second video, she followed up with a pitch for Christianity.

“But for those that would like to see eternal and everlasting life, I encourage you to embrace my lord and savior, Jesus Christ.”

Eagle-eyed observers may also notice both videos were filmed in a cemetery.

Shamelessness is one of their superpowers, along with the protective cloak afforded them by the stupidities of evangelical Christianity in its cruelest and most inane form.

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