Colorado Democratic Rep. Ed Perlmutter Monday night cited the July 20 mass killing in an Aurora, Colo. movie theater as one justification for passing President Obama’s Affordable Care Act in 2010.
The health care overhaul law, deemed “Obamacare,” by conservatives will “stop the discrimination against people with prior illnesses or injuries — or, say, some of the folks who were shot in the theater,” Perlmutter said during the meeting, conducted via Facebook and over a teleconference.
“They would be uninsurable now that they’ve had that wound, but under the Affordable Care Act they can’t be discriminated against starting in 2014.”
Perlmutter was among the first politicians to politicize the movie theater tragedy, allegedly carried out by former graduate student James Holmes. Congressman Perlmutter leveraged the shooting, barely 48 hours after it occurred for political purposes.
Appearing on CBS’s “Face the Nation” July 22, Perlmutter called for the reauthorization of a nationwide assault-weapon ban first enacted in 1994.
Holmes has been charged with 24 counts of first-degree murder.
On July 23 Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper told Fox-TV31 in Denver that talk of legislative priorities should wait until family members of the dead have had time to process the tragedy.
“I think the discussions of ‘do we need stricter laws’ should probably wait until the families have grieved,” Hickenlooper said, “and at least until we bury the people who we lost.”