Those Creepy Anti-ACA Ads Depicting Invasive Dr. Uncle Sam Were Created by the Koch Bros.’ Group That Advocates Involuntary Vaginal Ultrasounds

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Rough Transcript:

>>> the reason that governor ultrasouth sou ultrasound is called that, the reason that governor bob mcdonnell of virginia has the nickname governor ultrasound even thousand when he might be turned out of office or criminally indicted for a totally unrelated scandal, the way bob mcdonnell got the ultrasound nickname is because of the bill he supported as a state legislator for many, many years, and a law he signed into law in virginia, which requires virginia woman to get ultrasounds even if they don’t want them, even if they don’t need them, and even if their doctor does not want them to have them. the state legislature and governor ultrasurrouound are the ones who have decided which medical procedure you will have and you will pay for by order of state law. thus he is known as governor ultrasound. but rightfully, he should not be the only governor ultrasound. because he is not the only republican governor to sign a forced ultrasound law in the last few years. they have them in texas, in louisiana, in indiana, in kansas and arizona and wisconsin. this is a relatively recent invention, this idea that state government should force you to have an ultrasound, essentially, as the price of having an abortion, even if you and your doctor do not want you to have an ultrasound. it’s a relatively recent idea. but since the idea took hold, republicans have been pushing it all over the country. and the push for these laws happened all at once, all over the country, not because republican governors and legislatures all got the same idea all at once, but because of model legislation, a group called americans united for life. it’s a big well-funded anti-abortion group, they published a model bill, a template, essentially, for state legislatures on ultrasounds. the sunlight foundation did an analysis of more than a dozen republican-controlled states, where they moved ultrasound legislation. and they found overlapping language that seemed to indicate that all of these bills were derived from the americans united for life model bill on forcing women to have ultrasounds. model legislation is something that a lot of different groups do on the left and on the right. there’s nothing scandalous about that as a tactic in and of itself. what’s remarkable about the forced ultrasound stuff is americans united for life have been so successful for it, even though the republican party is ever and always trying to bill itself as a small government party. the freedom party, the party that leaves you alone, except for the ultrasound wand that they insist must be insert — never mind. it doesn’t matter if you say no, doesn’t matter if your doctor says no, shawl government republicans are mandating that it be done to you and that you pay for it. it is ideologically awkward, right? which makes the widespread success of that model legislation all the more remarkable. and now, we know what is next from this remarkably successful group. the vice president of operations from americans united for life, the guy who was there actually running the operations of that group during the time that they published their model legislation on forced ultrasound, the guy who saw it taken up by republican legislatures across the country, saw it moved as legislation in more than a dozen states and signed into law all over the place, even in places where it was blocked by the courts because it simply seemed really, blatantly illegal. the guy who was in charge of that success for americans united for life, the guy who was in charge of actually running the day-to-day operations of americans united for life during that forced ultrasound heyday now has a new job. now he is running the day-to-day operations for this group, which launched a high-profile ad campaign telling college students today that they shouldn’t let the government play doctor. hmm? so the last place he worked was helping republicans pass legislation to force women to have ultrasounds against their will. the new place he works, this is what they do.

>> okay. let’s have a look.

>> ahh!

>> so these ads got a lot of attention today, because they’re so creepy. they’re designed to be creepy, right? there’s also one where it’s a young man instead of a young woman and he’s due to have a prostate exam instead of a gynecological exam. the idea is not that it’s bad for the government to be forcing you to have specific medical procedures against your will. the idea here is that it is bad to have health insurance. that’s what this ad campaign is. it is a don’t get health insurance ad campaign. you’ll be fine! be uninsured! it’s actually part of a larger campaign to, in fact, to get you to promise to not get health insurance. they want you to sign your name and pledge on your honor that you will not get health insurance. and to whom are you making that pledge? you’re making it to the koch brothers. this group, running these don’t get health insurance ads, is funded by charles and david koch. incidentally, the forbes list of the richest people in america was just published again this week. charles and davidcoa koch are tied. they are the fourth and fourth richest people in the united states. if you combined their money, they would have $72 billion. if you have that much money, you know what you don’t need? health insurance. if charles or david koch get sick, they could just buy whatever they think might be the best hospital to treat them. i mean, david koch at one point in his life says he did get cancer, which is scary and bad, but what he did in response is he bought m.i.t. a new cancer research center, which is awesome, but not everybody can do that. exact numbers are hard to find, but the average total cost of treating the consequences of, say, a severe heart attack, can run to be about $1 million per person. maybe you might have a less severe heart attack, in which case, try $750,000 for your out-of-pocket costs. if you get cervical cancer, you’re expect cost of treatment over the first six months can range from about $4,000 for the easiest to treat to more than $45,000 for the hardest to treat, and that’s just the first six months, never mind the follow-up care after that. even if it’s just a broken leg, if you’re writing a check to treat your broken leg, the average cost of treating a broken leg can be over $10,000. and nobody wants any of those things to happen to them, but those things do still happen, usually unexpectedly. and if something terrible, lake cervical cancer, happens to you, would you like to be able to get treatment for that cancer? yeah. then, unless you’ve got $45,000 cash on hand to fork over at the window to pay for your treatment, you’re not going to get treatment unless you have health insurance. that’s why we have health insurance. that’s why we have a whole system of health insurance. that’s why every industrialized nation in the world has some kind of a system of health insurance. it’s a system. and everybody who can get into the system should be able to go to the doctor when they’re sick and get medicine to treat their illnesses and not be bankrupted by some bad surprise that they don’t have cash on hand to pay for the treatment of. the koch brothers have launched this new ad campaign today to tell people to not get health insurance. young people, especially. because getting health insurance is part of an evil democratic plot to try to get more people to have health insurance. and that is just like the dr. — the government playing doctor. and the government playing doctor is creepy. you should take that from the people who brought you government-mandated vaginal ultrasounds in texas and virginia and all across the country. trust them. they know

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