Tennessee Rep. Marsha Blackburn Defends Sacred Right To Buy Cheap Shoes, Crappy Insurance

Tennessee congressjerk Marsha Blackburn doesn't hold with an oppressive federal government meddling in people's choices -- unless of course it involves sluts who want contraception or abortions, duh -- and she gave HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius a piece of her mind about it at Wednesday's Yell-At-Obamacare hearing in the House, pointing out that maybe Americans like their crappy cheap insurance that doesn't actually cover anything:

“Some people like to drive a Ford, not a Ferrari ... And some people like to drink out of a red Solo cup, not a crystal stem. You’re taking away their choice.”

Of course, a lot of the plans that are being canceled by insurance companies are the equivalent of a Yugo with a cracked block and four flat tires. The Affordable Care Act simply says that insurers can't continue to sell go-carts and claim they're OK to drive on the freeway. (Analogies are fun!)

Thursday, Rep Blackburn got a sympathetic ear from Fox News' Martha MacCallum, who praised her for that brilliant Solo Cup analogy, saying it really summed up "the bigger picture" of the ACA's oppressive insistence that insurance actually insure something.

“I will always go to the mat and fight for freedom, free people, free markets,” Blackburn insisted. “And I think for the federal government to come in and take away the choice that people have had in the health care market and say, ‘Hey, we don’t like what you’ve been buying, we’re going to make you buy this.’”

“What’s the next thing going to be? You can’t buy that Solo cup? You can’t buy an inexpensive blouse? You can’t buy a pair of shoes that cost less than another pair?”

She added: “So do they think that the federal government is going to become the determiner of the cost and set prices of everything that you can buy at a quality that they say is worthy? Come on! This is absolutely ridiculous. I am not going to sit here and let them get by with this.”

You know, funny thing you should mention shoes, Rep. Blackburn. As it turns out, if a company wants to sell shoes that are labeled "protective footwear" -- you know, work boots for industrial workers? -- the Federal Gummint actually does have regulations that apply, with some very specific standards about how much protection they provide to people's feet, how much crush resistance they have to have, and so on. You actually can't take a pair of $10 bunny slippers and sell them as "work boots." It's a kind of foot insurance, you might say.

We recognize, of course, that Marsha Blackburn is unlikely to  be impressed by the fact that we do regulate shoes that are supposed to provide protection to their wearers.  Considering what we've seen so far, Yr Wonkette would like to apologize in advance if next week she introduces an OSHA Reform bill allowing welders to wear flip-flops.

[ RawStory ]