On Morning Joe today, White House Senior Adviser David Axelrod got into a contentious exchange with MSNBC host Ed Schultz over the health care bill.
“Where’s the competition?” asked Schultz “You talk about the exchange. The exchange is gonna be — the oversight there is gonna be private insurance. The key is, people in this country right now, the progressives, don’t believe that the White House has stood up to the insurance industry.”
“Ed, let me ask you a question. Why is the insurance industry so vigorously opposing this bill?” Axelrod responded.
“If this is such a gift to the insurance industry, if they don’t believe that this is going to force competition and force them to adhere to some standards in terms of how they treat patients,” Axeldrod added. “By the way, let me just add parenthetically, we fought for years as progressives for a patient’s bill of rights. Everything that was in that patient’s bill of rights is now enshrined in this legislation. And yet people say, let’s just throw it away, we don’t need it anymore. Why is the insurance industry fighting us so hard?
“Respectfully, Mr. Axelrod, I’ll answer your question if you answer mine,” Schultz responded defiantly. “I’ll answer your question: They have the money to play a shell game on the American people. They’re creating this facade that it’s really bad for them. It’s not, it’s a handout.”
