YouSaid · the spoken record

Elissa Slotkin

lines on the record

65

first

2021-12-16

most recent

2021-12-16

sittings or episodes

1

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podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

1. “Yes. And that was the moment. I mean, I was thinking about running, but I was real reticent. I was like, I'm a national security person. What is this whole running thing? How does it work? How do you raise money? How do you, like it was new? And I happened to watch that rose garden ceremony after the House voted to repeal the ACA. Beautiful day, carried live on TV. And I could see the man who was my member of Congress in the third or fourth row, you know, they were lining up for a picture or whatever. And he was having the best day of his life. He was smiling and joking and backslapping. And this was a signature accomplishment for him that he was going to deny people with pre-existing condition fair access to health care. And it broke me. And I turned to my husband and I said, no, you know, you don't get.”

   2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

2. “Have those things happen simultaneously and fast forward to 2017 when we had coverage for people finally with pre-existing conditions Obamacare, the ACA had made very clear that health insurance companies could not gouge you because you happened to be born with a pre-existing condition. And then that whole spring was a constant threat of taking it away. And actually the House of Representatives did vote to repeal the ACA.”

   2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

3. “In the summer of 2009 without us knowing she let it lapse. She paid some other bills. And in September of 2009, she walked to Henry Ford, a hospital in Michigan into the ER and was diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer. So I'm in my early 30s, as is my brother. It's the first time, obviously, we've had a parent get sick where, you know, we are responsible. Your life just explodes. It's just like a grenade goes off in your life when someone you care about gets a terminal diagnosis. And that same week and that same month that we were dealing with that terminal diagnosis was the same month that we were trying to figure out how to declare bankruptcy for her so that we could pay for her care. And I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.”

   2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

4. “She could not afford private insurance just on her own. My brother and I didn't know this, but she at the time, but she went for almost five and a half years with no insurance. So you think about that. A woman, a Jewish woman, so genetically predisposition to having breast cancer, ovarian cancer, cancer in general, no checkup annually, no gynecological exam. No one saying to her, you should really get a hysterectomy. You should really get genetic testing. None of that preventive work that goes on when you are, you know, enrolled in health insurance. In 2008, we helped her get insurance. We realized helped her get insurance. And it was $1,000 a month and a $10,000 deductible. So her highest bill in suburban Detroit, higher than her rent, thousand dollars was more than her rent.”

   2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

5. “At first, she was a travel agent. And then later on took on a bunch of different marketing jobs around town. And unbeknownst to my brother and I, she really struggled to afford insurance. And at the time, right, it was perfectly legal to gouge people with a pre-existing condition when they went to go and buy insurance. And my mother, like a lot of Jewish women, she had had a double masectomy when she was in her 30s. When I was a little girl, she had been very sick with breast cancer as a young woman. And so for the rest of her life, she had a pre-existing condition, right? What we call pre-existing condition. She had had serious cancer as a young woman. So she's out in the world working and her insurance was extremely expensive. And when she lost her job in the 2000s, she lost her insurance. And because of that pre-existing condition,”

   2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

6. “Yeah, well, because my parents were divorced, my mom was responsible for her own insurance, right? She wasn't on my father's insurance. She worked.”

   2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

7. “Yes. You know, I think actually the most impactful thing and certainly the thing I connect to my current life more than anything is that growing up at some point And in the late 80s, if you were in a gay community, people were dying of AIDS constantly. I mean, I still, it's still, it was just such a difficult thing for me to see in front of my eyes people that I loved getting very, very sick, getting very, very frail, and ultimately dying. That experience, I remember learning that at the time Ronald Reagan wouldn't talk about AIDS and he wouldn't put money into AIDS research. And I remember having the conscious thought in middle school that, well, if the Republicans won't put money into AIDS, then I'm a Democrat. So that was formative.”

   2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

8. “And you know, that was the 90s, early 90s. So I my mom has since passed away and died before, you know, there was gay marriage legal. And she had a partner, and they had a commitment ceremony, and they were together for six years before she died. But I just so I know she would just be amazed to see the progress that's gone on since she first came out.”

   2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

9. “I was going to ask you You don't. And in fact, I mean, I'm sorry, especially at that time, there was no discussion with your parents about that stuff, right? And so we actually, it went unspoken. And my mom, you know, of course, upon reflection, had girlfriends and they would come over and we'd spend all this time with them and get to know them. But we never actually articulated her being gay until I think at the earliest when I was finishing high school. Sort of only we had a real conversation about it when I was in college. And I went my entire K through 12 with no one in school knowing. I mean, really a very quiet thing. And actually my younger brother almost went through high school with no one knowing. And then he had a bad breakup with the girlfriend senior year. And she told the whole school. That was like her.”

   2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

10. “I think it was 11 or 12. And I think the thing that was definitely different than most of worse is going on at that time is that my mother came out. And live the rest of her life as a gay woman and in suburban Detroit in 1987, whenever it was, it was not hip to be gay. I mean, that was something that, frankly, we hid.”

    2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

11. “My parents were good Detroiters and my mom was grew up in Detroit, my dad grew up in downtown, and they met. They ended up getting divorced when I was young in the 80s. And actually, you know,”

    2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

12. “And he figured that out. So it looked, the hot dog looked better after three hours, you know, and nine innings. And so that's how they won the contract. And then all of the sort of marketing and TV ads and everything that went with ballpark franks came from that original, you know, they plump when you cook them, that original concept.”

    2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

13. “Yeah, that became ballpark franks. And we won the competition, actually, because we figured out, you know, at that point, anyone who had a hot dog company had like a German worst muster, like a German sausage maker aficionado who came up with the recipe list for all the hot dogs and sausages. And he, the one who was working for my family, came up with a recipe that would take a hot dog that sits in the steam in three or four hours of a baseball game and wouldn't shrivel, right? It would plump when you cook them.”

    2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

14. “I'm I appreciate that. There's almost nothing better than an all-be Frankfurter. It's really, it is good. And so the business was based in New York. And then the meat industry was moving west over time. And my family moved the headquarters to Detroit in the 50s and moved the whole family out there. And set up high grade foods in downtown Detroit, we ended up getting the contract.”

    2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

15. “Sure. Well, I think the sort of senior person in my family on the Slotkin side is my great-grandfather who came from Belarus and immigrated through Ellis Island and was the youngest of 13 kids. They all came to the United States. You know, obviously things were not good back in Minsk. and ended up working in a slaughterhouse in Buffalo. And rose through the ranks, eventually was able to become basically a traveling salesman. And through a whole bunch of innovation ended up saving enough money that he could start his own little meat company, which was high-grade foods and that grew and grew. We ended up doing all the meat for Nathan's hot dogs for the first few years.”

    2021-12-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 471 — Rep. Elissa Slotkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source