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John Cox stood on a presidential debate stage and advised the viewers that he was glad abortion wasn’t authorized in 1955.
If it had been, he mentioned, he wouldn’t have been born.
“I wouldn’t be standing here before you today. This is personal to me,” Cox mentioned within the 2007 GOP presidential main debate, explaining that his organic father walked out on his mom.
“My mother took responsibility for me,” he mentioned. “She’s glad she did, and I’m glad she did.”
Cox, California’s Republican candidate for governor, often invoked his anti-abortion views throughout his unsuccessful political bids for Congress and president. He unapologetically framed himself because the anti-abortion candidate – a Christian who believes in the correct to life, and whose “absolute opposition to abortion on demand” was born from his mom’s circumstances.
Cox has been much less vocal about his abortion views in blue-state California, the place Republicans, Democrats and independents overwhelmingly favor a lady’s proper to decide on. But his argument that it is a matter of private accountability supplies a window into Cox’s pondering relating to well being care general: He contends that free markets, mixed with folks taking accountability for his or her actions, must information well being care coverage — and that authorities ought to principally keep out of it.
His views on well being care distinction starkly with these of the Democratic gubernatorial nominee, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who requires well being care protection for all Californians, and helps the creation of a single-payer, government-run well being care system financed by taxpayers. In the most recent Public Policy Institute of California poll launched in late September, Cox trailed Newsom by 12 proportion factors amongst California’s seemingly voters, with 7 p.c undecided.
As a candidate for governor, Cox has not launched detailed well being care positions. Nor would he conform to an interview with California Healthline to clarify his views or permit these closest to him to remark.
On Monday, with lower than a month earlier than the election, Cox issued an announcement following a dwell gubernatorial debate saying that he helps inexpensive well being care for everybody, together with these with preexisting situations. He once more failed to offer any specifics.
A assessment of his statements, outdated and present marketing campaign web sites, and interviews with earlier marketing campaign aides portrays a profitable businessman who believes in limiting authorities in well being care and basically — a political philosophy impressed by Jack Kemp’s concentrate on free enterprise, fiscal conservatism and household values through the 1988 presidential marketing campaign.
Cox, who grew up in a Chicago suburb he describes as lower-middle class, turned a profitable tax lawyer, investor and developer earlier than getting concerned in Illinois Republican politics. He didn’t do as effectively in that enviornment: He ran unsuccessfully for Congress — the House in 2000 and the Senate in 2002 — and for Cook County Recorder of Deeds in 2004 and president in 2008.
“John is a principled guy. He didn’t come from much and he did very well,” mentioned Nicholas Tyszka, who was Cox’s marketing campaign supervisor in his U.S. Senate bid. “He’s certainly more of a limited-government guy who believes if you give people an opportunity to do good things, they will.”
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Cox, 63, settled in California completely in 2011, and now lives within the prosperous San Diego suburb of Rancho Santa Fe.
He has spent a lot of his marketing campaign lamenting California’s excessive price of residing, together with the latest fuel tax enhance that he’s encouraging voters to repeal in November.
Cox’s mindset of restricted authorities, mixed together with his conviction of private accountability, feeds his argument that competitors is the reply to rising well being care prices, excessive prescription drug costs and nurse shortages.
“I’ve heard him say many times health care should be run more by the free markets and the federal government should have less involvement,” mentioned Phil Collins, a Republican county treasurer candidate in Nevada who labored on two of Cox’s campaigns in Illinois.
In Monday’s assertion, Cox complained that “our current system was designed by political insiders and health care corporate lobbyists to protect their monopoly profits, not to provide decent health care at a reasonable price.”
Cox mentioned beforehand that, if elected governor, he isn’t fascinated about defending the Affordable Care Act, and that if Congress and the Trump administration have been to repeal the legislation, the tens of millions of Californians who now have protection may go into high-risk insurance coverage swimming pools. That may enhance the ranks of the uninsured.
In the hour-long debate Monday hosted by KQED, a San Francisco National Public Radio affiliate, Newsom challenged Cox’s want to repeal the ACA and criticized his abortion views when requested how the affirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court may have an effect on California.
“It could have a profound impact on Californians, on their reproductive rights, which you believe a woman does not have a right to choose, regardless whether or not they are raped or a tragic incident of incest,” Newsom mentioned.
Cox, who has dodged questions on his views on abortion through the gubernatorial marketing campaign, did so once more through the debate, saying solely that he would appoint justices in California who will respect the U.S. and state constitutions.
“The things I’ve seen him say are very much aligned with what we hear coming out of the Trump administration and the Republican leadership of Congress,” mentioned Dr. Andy Bindman, a main care physician at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and professor on the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies on the University of California-San Francisco who helped draft the Affordable Care Act.
When the state legislature this 12 months thought-about payments that will have opened Medi-Cal, California’s Medicaid program, to unauthorized immigrants between ages 19 and 25, in addition to these 65 and older, Cox went on nationwide tv to name the Democratic plans a “freebie” and advised Fox News that “our government has been grabbed by a bunch of people who believe that government is the most important thing.” The payments died within the legislature.
Cox has additionally criticized Newsom for advocating each a single-payer system, which he says would destroy California’s economy, and well being protection for unauthorized immigrants.
“Gavin Newsom wants to make problems even worse, by increasing the costs of health care of Californians and then rewarding those who cut in line,” Cox mentioned in an August information launch. “If we want to see how Newsom’s government health care would work, just look at the DMV.”
If elected governor, Cox mentioned in his post-debate assertion, he “will break up the health care corporate monopolies, make insurance companies compete and turn patients into consumers with power over their health care dollars.”
He declined to offer any particulars in response to questions submitted to his marketing campaign.
Bindman mentioned Cox is taking a web page out of the nationwide Republican playbook — bash the Affordable Care Act with out providing options.
“John Cox is not talking a lot about health care other than saying what he’s against because he doesn’t have any viable alternatives that ensure people retain coverage,” Bindman mentioned.
But through the years, Cox has made options that show his confidence in free markets to unravel issues. What exists now, he argued in his 2006 e book, “Politic$, Inc.,” is an “illogical system” the place insurance coverage corporations and authorities have taken over particular person affected person care.
The answer, Cox argued each in his e book and on his web site as a presidential candidate, can be to finish the federal tax deduction for worker medical insurance, opening the door to extra competitors and decrease costs. Like auto insurance coverage, customers ought to have the ability to select their very own medical insurance plans in a free market, he mentioned.
The poor may benefit from a restricted authorities voucher program, he proposed, one with incentives to economize and get preventive care, in addition to well being financial savings accounts that encourage customers to search out care on the most cheap price.
“Wealthier people may well have better choices, but that should be one of the awards for upward mobility,” he wrote.
Use Our Content This story could be republished at no cost (details).
This story was produced by Kaiser Health News, which publishes California Healthline, a service of the California Health Care Foundation.
Related Topics California Healthline Insurance Spotlight The Health Law Abortion Medi-Cal Women’s Health