Weiner in the Lion's Den

FOX and Friends hosts Democratic Representative Anthony Weiner from New York to talk about policy details in health care reform. Little did Gretchen and Kilmeade know that Weiner would come in with dual barrels blazing, spending his full five minutes debating and shooting down Republican talking points. Take a look.



I particularly enjoyed Weiner calling attention to the tired "government-run, socialist" meme and asking politicians to knock down Medicare and the VA if they despise federal medicine so much. That's a classic. More than that, in agreeing with the need of cost containment, he quickly reprimanded the hosts for not realizing that private insurance are skyrocketing far higher and faster than Medicare rates. He also agree that reimbursements should increase for doctors and hospitals at the expense of insurance shareholders.

Finally, he dismissed the pedestalling of tort reform and interstate shopping as insurance companies have corporate, commercial rights and loopholes to exploit rate changes. Think about his district. New England -- tiny states all jam-packed together. It would result in less overhead porting services (which isn't to say that insurance would start accepting more claims if these weren't attended to in the original bill) to neighboring states while domiciling in states whose rates and premiums were more favorable. It's the same reason why all the major credit card companies this decade had been domiciled in Delaware, the state with the most lax regulation laws.

I have to admit: I think I have my first political man crush.