Miss USA Kara McCullough thinks unemployed shouldn't have health care

Kara McCullough says coverage is a "privilege," not a right

By Matthew Rozsa

Staff Writer

Published May 15, 2017 1:56PM (EDT)

The future of the American Health Care Act may remain unclear, but one thing is certain: Kara McCullough, who on Sunday night went from being Miss District of Columbia to Miss USA, doesn't have much sympathy for people who don't have health insurance.

According to a report by the New York Daily News,McCullough said that she believes health care is not a right but merely a "privilege," during a question-and-answer session for the pageant at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center on the Las Vegas Strip.

When addressing a query about her health-care views, McCullough said that, "I’m definitely going to say it’s a privilege. As a government employee, I’m granted health care. And I see firsthand that for one to have health care, you need to have jobs — so therefore, we need to continue to cultivate this environment so that we’re given the opportunities to have health care as well as jobs for all Americans worldwide."

McCullough, 25, works as a chemist for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Her victory marks the second time in a row that the winner of the Miss USA pageant has hailed from Washington DC. The two runners-up were Miss New Jersey Chhavi Verg, who is studying marketing and Spanish at Rutgers University, and Miss Minnesota Meridith Gould, who attends the University of Minnesota as a student of apparel retail merchandising.

As Miss USA, McCullough will next compete for the top spot in the Miss Universe pageant. Both contests were formerly owned by President Donald Trump.


By Matthew Rozsa

Matthew Rozsa is a staff writer at Salon. He received a Master's Degree in History from Rutgers-Newark in 2012 and was awarded a science journalism fellowship from the Metcalf Institute in 2022.

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