This repugican Is So Scared Of Ebola He Suggests Using Obamacare To Help Stop It

by Stephen D Foster Jr

Well, this is quite an about-face.
For weeks repugicans and wingnut media have been stoking fear over the Ebola virus even though experts have weighed in to put these fears to rest with facts.
But in an interesting twist, it appears all the fear mongering over Ebola has caused at least one repugican congressman to become so scared of the virus that he wants President Obama to use the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) to combat it.
Despite voting more than 30 times to repeal Obamacare, repugican Michael Burgess of Texas called upon President Obama to use the law to fight Ebola during a radio appearance on the Mark Davis Show.

repugican Michael Burgess

It’s section 4002 in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, it’s called the Prevention and Public Health Fund, and this is a self-replenishing fund, at the first of the fiscal year every year. Two billion dollars washes into the Secretary’s offices of Health and Human Services for her to use, do whatever she wishes. But how about we take these $2 billion and we fight this darn disease? It’s preposterous that you would continue to use this money for what I would consider non-essential incidentals when you’ve got this fire raging right outside your door.

Of course, as ThinkProgress reports that the $2 billion fund isn’t exactly a pile of money that can be used at the discretion of the Secretary. The money is used “in community and clinical prevention, research, public health infrastructure, immunizations and screenings, tobacco prevention and public health workforce and training.”
Still, the fact that a hardcore wingnut House repugican is setting all his animosity against Obamacare aside is a big deal. The cool thing is that Obamacare is already fighting Ebola in a way. After all, now that more Americans then ever before have health insurance, it won’t be such a big deal for them to seek treatment when they are sick. Unfortunately, that’s not the case in many red states such as Texas, where repugicans are blocking Medicaid expansion. Those in poverty are particularly at risk for contracting viruses and diseases, so Medicaid expansion would be helpful in the prevention and swift treatment of Ebola if more American were to contract it.
It’s sad that it took fear of an epidemic to persuade a Republican to actually support Obamacare, but if the repugican cabal really wants to do something meaningful to make Americans safer, they should expand Medicaid in states that have yet to do so and work to bring affordable healthcare and insurance to those Americans who still need it. When everyone can afford to seek treatment, people are less likely to refuse to do so, which means there is less of an opportunity for viruses and diseases to spread. That’s one of the whole points of providing healthcare to every citizen.