Appearing as a guest on Saturday's AM Joy, allegedly conservative Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin sounded like just one more liberal analyst on top of the other four liberals already on the panel as she could only find negative things to say about Republican efforts to repeal ObamaCare, and even fretted over the move to defund Planned Parenthood.
On the issue of the abortion provider, she bemoaned: "On the point about clinics, why aren't Democrats saying, 'You know what, if you're going to take money away from Planned Parenthood, are you going to spend money building clinics -- brand new clinics?' Because these people do not have access." She then added: "So if they want to do that, they need to start putting their chips on the table. If they want to take something away, what are they going to give back?"
A bit earlier, after host Joy Reid asked if Republicans would be able to get a President Donald Trump to go along with their plans to repeal ObamaCare, Rubin only found problems in GOP talk of replacing the law as she responded:
I don't think so. Both in Congress and Donald Trump has raised expectations that, as the President said, "We're going to cover all the same people, the same coverage, do it cheaper, do it better," you know, this is a soap commercial of course. There is no such animal. And the difficulty comes in that the components that Paul Ryan talks about are fanciful. High-risk pools do not work. We have a long history of high-risk pools not working.
She added:
That gets to be really, really expensive, and they run out of money. So that's not a solution. He's talking about access to health care. He's not talking about actual coverage. And that access to health care is catastrophic coverage. What is one thing that the Trump voters complain about? High deductibles. What is a catastrophic plan? The highest deductible.
Rubin concluded on a negative note toward Republicans:
So I don't know what they're promising, what they think they're going to do. They've been so used to being in the minority and kind of throwing this stuff up as criticism, Now, they've got to govern. And where are the eight Democrats who are going to vote for this thing in the Senate? I don't know what they're doing, and I don't think they do either.
Below are transcripts of the relevant portions of the Saturday, January 14, AM Joy on MSNBC:
11:21 a.m. ET
JOY REID: Jennifer, presumably there are a lot of Republicans who have experienced the Affordable Care Act personally. Can Paul Ryan and the Republicans get away with using Donald Trump -- who didn't run on this -- as a way to get through their long-desired goal of getting rid of federal participation in helping people get health care?
JENNIFER RUBIN, WASHINGTON POST: I don't think so. Both in Congress and Donald Trump has raised expectations that, as the President said, "We're going to cover all the same people, the same coverage, do it cheaper, do it better," you know, this is a soap commercial of course. There is no such animal. And the difficulty comes in that the components that Paul Ryan talks about are fanciful. High-risk pools do not work. We have a long history of high-risk pools not working.
REID: And these are state-run pools where all of the sickest people get thrown in together.
RUBIN: Right. And guess what: That gets to be really, really expensive, and they run out of money. So that's not a solution. He's talking about access to health care. He's not talking about actual coverage. And that access to health care is catastrophic coverage. What is one thing that the Trump voters complain about? High deductibles. What is a catastrophic plan? The highest deductible.
So I don't know what they're promising, what they think they're going to do. They've been so used to being in the minority and kind of throwing this stuff up as criticism, Now, they've got to govern. And where are the eight Democrats who are going to vote for this thing in the Senate? I don't know what they're doing, and I don't think they do either.
(...)
RUBIN: On the point about clinics, why are aren't Democrats saying, "You know what, if you're going to take money away from Planned Parenthood, are you going to spend money building clinics -- brand new clinics?" Because these people do not have access.
REID: I doubt it.
RUBIN: Right. So if they want to do that, they need to start putting their chips on the table. If they want to take something away, what are they going to give back.
