David Schweikert Is a Condescending Elitist Who Says Those Afraid of Losing Medicaid Coverage Are ‘Whining and Bedwetting’

Did you know that the name Schweikert is a German surname with roots in the Middle High German word “swik,” meaning to deceive or trick. It likely originated as a nickname for someone considered clever or cunning?

Well, David “Deceitful” Schweikert certainly suits his name.

David Schweikert is also an Infuriating, Condescending Elitist who is out of touch to such an extreme degree with the voters of Arizona and his District that he is defending the Republican-led cuts to Medicaid required by Trump’s Big MAGA Murder Act, saying they are “fiscally responsible”, make “good economic sense” and calling concerns about millions losing their only health insurance “whining and bedwetting.”

AZ Republic reporter Laura Gersony interviewed Davey Deceitful and wrote of the coming cuts to Medicaid (emphases added):

The reforms are projected to cause millions of Americans to lose their health insurance, largely by expanding requirements that enrollees prove they are working or qualify for an exemption.

They are also eventually projected to subtract billions of dollars from Arizona’s health care economy, by cutting a tax that the state uses to finance Medicaid.

But in an interview with The Arizona Republic, Schweikert, R-Arizona, made the case that the reforms are the fiscally responsible thing to do, and that overall they will help fix a system that “incentivizes” rising health care costs.

AZCentral, by Laura Gersony, “Arizona congressman defends Medicaid cuts after dismissing concerns as ‘bedwetting'”

First of all, Trump’s Big MAGA Murder Act is making drasitc CUTS of $1 trillion to Medicare, euphamized as ‘reforms’ by imposing additional eligibility tests. Those hurdles are DESIGNED to cancel the only medical insurance millions of deserving and now eligible people are able to get.

The inevitable result will be that many of those folks will suffer, have their health permanently compromised, or simply die pre-maturely – and the MAGA sociopaths who voted for this, like the entire GOP congressional delegation of AZ, absolutely know this fact. And they don’t care.

What’s worse is that Davey Deceitful thinks those lives are a laudible tradeoff in exchange for continuing Trump’s massive tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires that those Medicaid cuts will pay for.

Davey Deceitful said of the drastic cuts:

Schweikert said that overall the reforms in the GOP budget bill make economic and fiscal sense.

“If you’re going to think like an economist, you got to do it from top to bottom,” he said in an interview.

Ibid.

Last I checked, ‘thinking like an economist’ is not the job description of a Congressional Representative: we have actual economists for that. Representatives are hired to represent the interests and to promote the general welfare of their constituents. Davey Deceitful thinks that’s too pedestrian for a great mind like his.

He argued that the funding mechanism cut by the bill was poorly designed to begin with, that Arizona’s expansion of Medicaid — expected to take a hit under the bill — was always meant to be dialed back, and that, on the other side of the ledger, the tax cuts renewed by the budget bill will benefit his district immensely.

Schweikert, widely seen as vulnerable in next year’s midterm elections, argued the changes should be thought of not as “cuts” but as a “slowdown of growth” in Medicaid.

Ibid.

While Davey Deceitful fiddles with his dials and plays semantics with his descriptions, he seems either blissfully unaware – or worse, uncaring – that those dials are intimately connected to the health and lives of his constituents. I’m sure that all those whose family members will die due to his tinkering with the macro-economy will take confort in knowing that their loved ones died to achieve Deceitful Dave’s ‘slowdown of growth’.

Does Davey Deceitful suggest an alternative methodology for funding Arizona’s Medicaid system to replace the one he glibbly dismisses as ‘poorly designed’? No, he does not. It’s less than Pareto-optimal to Davey’s perfect mind, so it must go, and those who rely on that Mediaid it funds must just suck it up while your betters ‘dial back’ a flawed system that you rely on to stay alive.

I sure hope that Davey Deceitful will realize that his tinkering truly affects citizens’ lives before he decides to jump into the Governor’s race, where he will get a much more diverse set of tools to tinker with – and potentially end – citizens’ lives.

Schweikert said the media’s treatment of the issue, such as its focus on hospitals’ profit margins, obscures “the entire unified theory of financial stress we’re actually under.” 

To right the country’s fiscal ship, “we’re going to have to do a series of difficult things.”

On the ground (i.e., in AZ – ed. MDB), states and hospitals are expected to feel a crunch.

The nonpartisan health policy group KFF estimates that the bill will cost Arizona between $26 billion and $43 billion in federal spending over the next 10 years.

Advocacy groups have argued the cuts will imperil rural hospitals and clinics, by cutting a key source of revenues.

Ibid.

So sorry to let trivial concerns like ‘economic reality’ and the ‘continued functioning of the institutions that keep our citizens alive and healthy’ might intrude on your lofty “unified theory’ of the economy, Davey Deceitful! So sorry that your massive tax giveaways to the 1% might be inconvenienced by us mere mortals and our silly human needs.

Sucking between $26 and $43 BILLION out of Arizona’s health sector over the next decade will be devastating to the health of Arizona’s citizens, not to mention the health and growth of our state’s economy.

But the 1% must be kept in champagne, mega-yahcts, and private jets, don’t you know? We all will have to make sacrifices if the plutocrats and oligarchs who actually own our government are going to continue to flick crumbs from their magnificent mustaches into our politicians pockets.

You and I and all the folks who work for a living will just have to endure what we must while our betters, like Davey Deceitful and his oligarch owners, do what they must to keep their gravy trains running on time and topped up.

While Davey Deceitful is busy fluffing his owners and letting his constituents die to pursue his lofty reforms of the economy, his sever or more (!?) Democratic competitors are actually focused on the people of Arizona and the constituents of District 1.

For instance, Amish Shah responded to Davey’s deceits in Gersony’s article, saying:

Former state Rep. Amish Shah, D-Phoenix, an emergency room doctor seeking to challenge Schweikert in the upcoming 2026 election, is emphasizing analyses finding that rural hospitals will face an increased risk of closing, and that more Americans will go into medical debt.

“I’d love to introduce him to the huge number of decent, hard-working people I treat daily in the ER struggling with health care costs so he can tell them that to their face,” Shah said in a written statement to The Arizona Republic.

Ibid.

But such mundane human concerns are too gubby and pedestrian for Davey Deceitful to disturb his ‘beautiful mind‘ with as he architects our macro-economy.

Thank you, Davey Deceitful for setting us all straight about what really matters! Your wisdom and compassion (for the 1%) are shining examples to all of us mere citizens.