Donald Trump is apparently in no mood to hear criticism of the latest iteration of the Republican health care bill, even if it’s from a woman suffering stage 4 cancer.
On Wednesday, the president blocked a woman suffering an advanced form of Hodgkin’s Lymphoma when she tweeted criticism of the Graham-Cassidy health care bill to his Twitter account. As Think Progress noted, a Las Vegas woman named Laura Packard slammed the bill, which would give insurers the ability to raise premiums for people with pre-existing conditions and could strip health insurance from more than 30 million people.
Packard soon found that she was blocked by Donald Trump, but still worked to get her message out and inform people of the dangers of the Republican health care bill.
“I didn’t sleep too well because of the cancer,” she told Think Progress . “But I don’t know if he just woke up on the wrong side of the bed today or what.”
Donald Trump has gotten into some trouble with his Twitter habits. In July, a group of people who had been blocked on Twitter by President Trump filed a federal lawsuit claiming that the act was a violation of the First Amendment. The lawsuit claims that the president cannot stop people from engaging with him because they share opinions he does not like, the New York Times noted.
“The @realDonaldTrump account is a kind of digital town hall in which the president and his aides use the tweet function to communicate news and information to the public, and members of the public use the reply function to respond to the president and his aides and exchange views with one another,” the lawsuit said.
Omg. The President of the United States just personally blocked me. pic.twitter.com/MgLfwufOXC
— Laura Packard (@lpackard) September 20, 2017
While he may have blocked a woman suffering stage 4 cancer for criticizing the health care plan, Donald Trump cannot escape the widespread criticism elsewhere. Late night comedian Jimmy Kimmel also took aim at the proposal, saying that Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy lied when the told Kimmel that Republicans would only bring forward a bill that passed the “Jimmy Kimmel test.” That test, Cassidy said, means that a child born with a heart condition like the one Kimmel’s son suffered would “be able to get everything she or he would need in that first year of life.”
Hi, people who follow @realDonaldTrump ! FYI. Cassidy’s bill would throw at least 32 million Americans off insurance. https://t.co/Ly8SGFxZSG
— Ben Wikler (@benwikler) September 21, 2017
“I am a conservative, not a radical.”
-Why conservative economist Stuart Butler is against Graham-Cassidy repeal https://t.co/AAKDELcDkn
— Andy Slavitt ?? (@ASlavitt) September 21, 2017
Experts say the Graham-Cassidy bill could force patients with pre-existing conditions to pay exorbitant premiums, essentially pricing them out of health care.
Despite the criticism, Donald Trump continues to push for the deal to be passed and continues to use Twitter as a soapbox.
[Featured Image by Michael B. Thomas/Getty Images]
