Tom Perez, DNC chairman, refuses to apologize for saying GOP leaders don’t care about people

Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez on Tuesday said he was referring to GOP leadership, and not regular voters, when he told activists over the weekend that Republicans simply don’t care about people.

But Mr. Perez refused to apologize for the remarks, saying he grew up in Buffalo, New York, where residents are “blunt people.”

Specifically, he faulted GOP leaders for offering an Obamacare repeal bill that was estimated to leave 24 million fewer people with insurance a decade from now.

“I thought the Republican leadership was heartless with how they dealt with the Affordable Care Act,” Mr. Perez said.

That bill failed, though Obamacare supporters fear an emerging offer from the Trump administration might be a more direct strike at protections built into the 2010 law.

The tentative offer would allow states to apply for a waiver that scraps the portion of Obamacare requiring insurers to cover a list of essential health benefits, including maternity and mental health care, and “community rating” regulations that bar insurers from charging sick people more than the healthy.

Insurers would still have to accept people with pre-existing medical conditions, but critics of the offer say it is meaningless if sick consumers have the pay exorbitant prices.

Mr. Trump had promised to promote a plan that takes care of those who are already sick.

Conservatives say people who are priced out of the market can be taken care of in separate high-risk pools, though policy analysts say those would have to be adequately subsidized to work.

Mr. Perez also said President Trump’s “skinny budget” proposed harsh cuts.

“Budgets are moral documents,” he said.

Mr. Trump himself was criticized for his rock ’em-sock ’em language on the campaign trail, but Mr. Perez said he doesn’t regret anything except the “chaos and carnage” of the first few months of Mr. Trump’s administration, citing proposed cuts to Meals on Wheels and recent immigration raids.