Thursday, September 23, 2010

MIKE HUCKABEE TO AMERICANS WITH PRE-EXISTING CONDITIONS: JUST GO SOMEWHERE AND DIE!

William Rivers Pitt of TRUTHOUT.org wrote this piece that provides more information on the pre-existing conditions issue. This time the argument is made by a Christian pastor and politician and concerns adult Americans. I blogged about the insurance companies throwing off their rolls babies and children with pre-existing conditions yesterday over at PE. 

Read what Mike Huckabee thinks about Americans with pre-existing conditions. BTW, what Huckabee says is personal to me as well as to Pitt. I am among the millions of Americans with pre-existing conditions.




WILLIAM RIVERS PITT:

Huckabee took the podium at the Values Voters Summit to attack and denounce the Obama administration's health care reform legislation, which was par for the course as far as the event went. But Huckabee was not content merely to repeat the "It's a government takeover, let's repeal it" rhetoric, choosing instead to carve a bold new path into the annals of infamy:


When Republicans attack health care reform, Democrats like to counter by accusing Republicans of wanting to repeal a law that requires insurance companies to cover people with pre-existing conditions. According to Republican Presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee, that's exactly right. People with pre-existing conditions, he explains, are like houses that have already burned down.




"It sounds so good, and it's such a warm message to say we're not gonna deny anyone from a preexisting condition," Huckabee explained at the Value Voters Summit today. "Look, I think that sounds terrific, but I want to ask you something from a common sense perspective. Suppose we applied that principle our property insurance. And you can call your insurance agent and say, "I'd like to buy some insurance for my house." He'd say, "Tell me about your house." "Well sir, it burned down yesterday, but I'd like to insure it today." And he'll say, "I'm sorry, but we can't insure it after it's already burned." Well, no pre-existing conditions."

Let's look at some numbers, shall we?


According to the American Heart Association, more than 81,000,000 Americans suffer from one or more forms of cardiovascular disease. According to the American Cancer Society, more than 11,000,000 people in America currently suffer from some form of cancer. According to the American Diabetes Association, 23.6 million Americans currently suffer from diabetes, and the Center for Disease Control has estimated as many as half of all Americans will suffer from the disease by the year 2050, thanks to our deplorable dietary habits. According to the National Parkinson's Foundation, between 50,000 and 60,000 new cases of Parkinson's Disease are diagnosed in America each year. According to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, some 400,000 Americans currently suffer from MS.


That's a pretty substantial portion of the population, with more being diagnosed with cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes, Parkinson's and MS every day.


All of them, every single one of them, are like a house that has already burned down, according to Mike Huckabee and the sick bastards who cheered his comments. All of them, every single one of them, are not worthy of health insurance because they had the misfortune of getting sick before they got insurance. All of them, every single one of them, therefore, are not worthy of health care in any real form, unless, of course, they are wealthy and able to afford the staggering cost of ill health in America.


All of them, in short, every single one of them, can basically just go die in Mike Huckabee's world. They are not worthy of coverage, treatment or consideration. The five diseases I listed account for well over a third of the American population, and if Mike Huckabee or someone who agrees with him somehow becomes president someday, those millions of people should just dig their own graves and lie down in them.


Yeah, that's why I'm not polite to these people. My wife has multiple sclerosis, and Mr. Huckabee this weekend compared her to a burned-down house. My wife is a vibrant, active woman who deals with a terrible, terrifying disease that costs upwards of $50,000 a year to treat. Thankfully, my wife was already insured through work when she was diagnosed, but there are many thousands of people out there with MS who have no insurance, or who won't have insurance when they get diagnosed. If Huckabee has his way, people with pre-existing conditions will be treated as burned-down houses and essentially left to die."

17 comments:

  1. Huckabee in his dementia seems to have forgotten that his argument might make some sense only if we were made of wood and nails and COULD NOT VOTE!
    Careful Mike, mental illness is a pre-existing condition...

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  2. So who needs Death Panels anyway?

    We've got Republicans and insurance companies already.

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  3. rockync, you know darn well mental illness is not covered under most policies because it is not real... it's all in your head...

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  4. Dave - that's not what the voices in MY head are telling me! :)

    Jst found out Huckabee is going to be appearing at the coliseum in a nearby city in Oct. It might worth the ticket money if I can take a bag a rotten tomatoes with me.
    They are billing his appearance as "Freedom, Faith & Family." That is soooo nauseating...

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  5. I hate illogical analogies. People with pre-exisiting health conditions are not equivalent to a house that no longer exists. It doesn't make much sense to insure a house that is a pile of ashes, but people with pre-existing health conditions aren't a pile ashes. We work, we have families, we are alive. Huckabee and his ilk particularly disgust me with their blatant hypocrisy. They are insistent in their opposition to a woman's right to choose whether or not to terminate a pregnancy and allege that their opposition is born out of a reverence for human life. Bullshit! Well what about all of us have some pre-existing health condition? Aren't we alive?

    However, Huckabee's ignorance pales in comparison to his jackass followers who surely have friends or relatives with pre-existing conditions yet are willing to have them reduced to being likened to a pile of ashes.

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  6. If I hadn't been in Massachusetts at the time of my breast cancer, I would be a pile of ashes--in an urn on one of my children's bookcases.

    I had inadequate health insurance.

    I moved back to Mass., and was able to obtain coverge under the Mass. healthcare laws, which mandates everyone be covered, pre-exisiting conditions notwithstanding.

    What would I have done when my next bout 3 years later, an unrelated cancer, happened?

    I am astounded at the callous disregard for life people like Huckabee demonstrate when they make heartless comparisons as he did in Pitt's article.

    Meanwhile, with regard to babies and children being thrown off of insurance companies' rolls because of pre-existing conditions, I heard not one word of outrage from any pro-lifer.

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  7. Sheria - want to meet me in Winston Salem for his Oct rally at the Coliseum? I'll get another bag of rotten tomatoes! :)

    Shaw - with the shining examples of how a universal health care model can work in both Mass and OR, this health care bill should be a no brainer. Yet the GOP is basing their campaigns on promising to repeal the health care bill aka Obamacare which should really be called Americacare.
    Sickening!
    And speaking of outrage - where is the outrage from the White House? From the Democratic congress?
    I have family here including children and grandchildren but I am thinking seriously about leaving the country permanently because there is no way I can continue to live with such ignorance and hatred.
    I keep hoping change is going to come but that hope dims a little daily.

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  8. Republican leaders and politicians routinely abuse the sick, the tired, the poor, yearning to be free. Republicans blame them (and the gays) for all of America's problems. They serve their Moneyed MAsters

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  9. Right-wingers never accepted the New Deal, not even the basics. They can't wait to lead the way to their pseudo-libertarian nirvana-state in which nobody helps anybody, ever, no matter what -- it's a sign of weakness, you know, to help anybody -- and in which the universal sentiment is that if you're sick or destitute, it must be entirely your own fault. And the rich, as we all know, are that way because God has blessed them so highly. Right?

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  10. When you get into the DSM-IV psychiatric diagnoses like ADD or major depression, your pre-existing condition can start in childhood and be excluded forever.

    Or, as I've discovered in the last two days, you can be a child who is considered uninsurable on a private health plan due to the pre-existing condition of existing. Previously.

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  11. But Chuck Norris has his back.
    Oh brother...
    Huckabee is just doing Gods will.
    I'm going to be sick....

    Here's a Candidate with a show on Fox.
    I though that was against the law.
    They sure got all over Ed Shultz when he was thinking of running for office.

    Sickening isn't it.

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  12. Guuuuh! When I heard about what Huckabee said at the Values Voters Summit, I wondered how this man could call himself a Christian. This attitude about pre-existing conditions is NOT compatible with an ethic of loving one's neighbor. Someone should ask Huckabee if Jesus denied healing to those with pre-existing conditions such as leprosy. :)

    In all seriousness, I wonder how close Huckabee is with health insurance company lobbyist. His comment struck me a nod to their interests.

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  13. Funny how, when Grayson said it, the right wing got all cranky.

    But that's their plan. "Die quickly."

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  14. Some conditions are genetic and virtually unavoidable but why are we Americans (well the whole world now) so damn unhealthy (fat)? Was the human race always this f'd up? Or do we just not care because in the back of our minds, we think no matter what, someone's going to take care of us when we fall ill?

    Or is it because, despite our current economic situation, the highest standard of living in human history that we enjoy is so "depressing" that we have to either reach for our Prozac or a fist-full of comfort food?

    I feel for the blogger and his wife and others who are the exceptions to the rule. But the rule is, Americans aren't unhealthy, we just live unhealthy. Just how in the hell is a nation filled with so many who are too stupid to even take care of themselves supposed to pay for those immense numbers listed in the blog above? How is the system not going to break down?

    The insurance industry is the devil...I know, I used to work in it. But this country's population on the whole is uninsurable....period.

    That's right, I'm a conservative who's most likely not welcome here but socialized medicine will never work until people start living healthy. I'm not holding my breath for that...

    Nightowl

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  15. That's funny. Most conservatives got all up in arms about Michelle Obama suggesting that kids eat healthier.

    You guys gotta make up your minds. Is it "eat what you want, it's your right" or is it "You guys are fat and uninsurable"? Pick a position, OK?

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  16. "I'm a conservative who's most likely not welcome here"

    As I keep saying, the term means nothing. It's just a gratuitous pejorative. When I'm at my most conservative, self styled conservatives tend to call me a liberal, tree hugging pinko. It's all about class tribalism, not about reality.

    Is anyone aware of how insurance works? Excluding people puts the burden on the rest of us anyway - as long as we're still civilized enough not to throw people out in the street because they don't have it. The larger the pool of insured individuals, the more the premiums reflect the actuarial risk and please keep in mind that our fatness obsession doesn't explain the facts of public health. Obesity is far higher amongst the poor because they eat biscuits and gravy out of necessity. You won't find those people at Whole Foods and as one who has to eat 600 calories or less a day while exercising regularly to keep from getting fat, I resent the smug insinuation that being heavy makes someone unworthy of having his cancer or Antrax or anything else treated.

    Wanna exclude black people because they have a higher incidence of sickle cell anemia? For your own good I suggest you think otherwise.

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  17. Oh, and I forgot:

    "But this country's population on the whole is uninsurable....period."

    I spent a decade as an insurance company executive - and yes, they are the devil, but nothing is uninsurable, it just costs more to insure some things than others. That's why God invented actuaries and arithmatic.

    One of the reasons American health is less than it should be however, is that so many people have no insurance and little recourse to doctors and medical treatment. That of course adds to the cost of insuring them. You can't blame our high infant mortality on obesity - everone's favorite bogeyman - for instance. You can blame much of it on poverty and lack of access to our for-profit medical "system"

    As I see it, this is just another instance of that "government is intrinsically evil" meme overriding objectivity and I have to ask, since we are a democracy, at least in theory, if "conservatives" think democracy is evil? If so, perhaps it's another one of those many ways conservatism isn't really conservatice and more a form of radical neo-anarchistic revolution.

    And to re-address Shuckabee, houses aren't born with heart disease or cancer and how worthy of old Yahweh would it be to strip Mike of his wealth and give his children a congenital disease so that he could be shunned by all of us conservitives?

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