GOP rep dismisses congresswoman's impassioned plea for Obamacare as "hysterics"

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (R-TX) gave an especially powerful speech against the bill and the harm it would cause, calling it “the Mother of All Bombs on health care,” and telling her Republican colleagues, “God have mercy on your soul.”

Georgia Republican Rep. Doug Collins, who spoke next, opened with a disgraceful and sexist remark, causing his fellow Republicans to laugh in apparent agreement:

JACKSON LEE: I thank the speaker very much. I want you to look and keep your eyes on who will feel the Trumpcare’s Mother of All Bombs of health care dropped on the American people. God have mercy on your soul.

I am a person living with a preexisting disease. I am a breast cancer survivor. And this heartless and callous bill, with 24 million plus people being thrown off of their health care, and reverse Robin Hood of stealing from the poor or the seniors laying in their beds where you’re doing an age tax that is five times more than any other young person has to pay is disgraceful.

Or the pittance that you’ve given for preexisting conditions. Eight billion! They say you need 25 billion. And then you’re telling the states, Oh get a waiver. That’s gonna [inaudible]. And then you’re saying to Trump the king that we have the votes to drop that Mother of All Bombs of health care.

Let me just simply say, I want to stand with the people. I want her to live in dignity and to be able to get well. I want to make sure that Medicaid is provided for working families. I want insurance companies who make a lot of profit — and I want to say this: I don’t want the poor to sleep under bridges, begging in the streets, to steal bread from the market because they can’t get any health insurance. God have mercy!

COLLINS: Mr. Speaker, if I had to defend Obamacare, I’d go into hysterics too.

The “hysterics” to which Collins refers is due to the fact that this plan could throw tens of millions of people off of their health care, which studies show will cost tens of thousands of lives.

Jackson Lee’s final words should ring in the ears of every Republican who votes for this bill, and fuel the overwhelming resistance to it.