Fox’s Brit Hume: Obamacare’s “coverage for pre-existing conditions…basically defeats the whole idea of insurance”

Hume: “For example, in the automobile insurance market, if you could wait until you had a wreck and then buy insurance and have the repairs covered, that's comparable to what we're doing here”

From the July 16 edition of Fox Broadcasting Co.'s Fox News Sunday:

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BRIT HUME: And remember this, Chris. The triumph of Obamacare is this coverage for pre-existing conditions, which basically defeats the whole idea of insurance. Which is, for example, in the automobile insurance market, if you could wait until you had a wreck and then buy insurance and have the repairs covered, that's comparable to what we're doing here. 

DR. EZEKIEL EMANUEL: But Brit, if I have cancer --

HUME: Hold on, let me finish. Can I please finish? The idea of insurance is that you purchase it to guard against risks and things that may occur in the future. It's not that you purchase the coverage after you are already sick. Once that idea is gone, Obamacare essential remains. 

CHRIS WALLACE (HOST): You've got 20 seconds.

DR. EMANUEL: If I have cancer through no fault of my own, I didn't hit a car, I need to have insurance to cover me. This bill does nothing for those people. it only makes the price of their insurance ever higher. Cancer patients and patients with multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's disease get completely written out of coverage by this bill.

Previously:

Cable and broadcast news still obsess over process, ignore personal stories in health care coverage

News outlets fail to report on what the GOP health care rollback means for LGBTQ Americans

Fox host suggests it might be “safest” to repeal Obamacare without a replacement plan