A central Bible verse left Alabama congressman Tommy Tuberville puzzled Wednesday — as he compared himself to America’s poorest people.
Tuberville, a member of the conservative Churches of Christ denomination who frequently espouses his beliefs, including posting on his Facebook page, “As a man of Christian Faith, it’s horrifying to witness this decline of morals in America,” was tripped up by the words of Jesus.
“Punishing what?” the Republican uttered at the reference as a Raw Story reporter confronted him over the GOP’s move to throw 750,000 people off Obamacare.
“Some of the people say your party’s, you know, punishing ‘the least of these,’” he was told.
“Punishing what? ‘The least of these?’”
“‘The least of these’ — biblical reference,” the reporter explained, referring to the famous verse in Matthew 25:40, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”
Jesus speaks the words, teaching that acts of kindness toward the poor, sick or hungry are acts done for Jesus himself.
“The least of these?” Tuberville asked again, clearly puzzled.
But he soldiered on.
“Well, we’re all getting punished,” he said. “We’re all in the same boat.”
Congress members choose a top-tier health care plan and have about 75 percent of the cost covered by taxpayers.
A rank-and-file member of the House also receives a salary of $174,000-a-year.
Tuberville’s home state, meanwhile, is the eighth poorest in the nation, with more than 16 percent of its population living under the federal poverty level.
On Tuesday, Vice President JD Vance and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz announced that roughly 750,000 people have had their ACA coverage canceled, citing fraud.
Vance said those enrollments include people unaware they were enrolled, people with employer-provided coverage, or those earning above 400% of the federal poverty level. He estimated the move will save taxpayers $2.2 billion.
Another 419,000 marketplace enrollees face additional verification. The administration also suspended new agents or brokers for six months.
Officials did not provide details about who lost coverage or how they were informed, and health policy experts question the administration’s claims about the scale of fraud.
“Yeah. I mean, good job,” said Tuberville.
“This is the first group that ever tried to clean it up. We’re losing hundreds of millions of dollars a day to fraud. We can’t afford it.”
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