Mom who shared son's surgery bill online: "I was offered a .22 bullet"

[bigtree]

Raw Story‏ @RawStory 14m14 minutes ago

‘I was offered a .22 bullet’: Mom who shared son’s surgery bill online got deluge of death threats

____She said she tried to reason with some of these angry attackers, but then realized they weren’t listening to anything she said.

“No one seemed willing to stop shouting long enough to realize that there was a real person on the other side of the screen, a mother who’s seen her baby go through hell and come out the other side four times now and who just wants him to have a shot at going to kindergarten too,” she wrote.

Then, she said, she was contacted by a mother whose child’s heterotaxy syndrome had never been properly diagnosed. Reading Chandra’s story online helped the woman find out the nature of her son’s illness and to connect to the community of other parents of children with the syndrome.

“It was like the sunrise after an endless night. My poor, beleaguered heart had been drowning in the fetid pool of the worst the internet has to offer, and suddenly I had been thrown a lifeline,” she wrote at Vox. “My focus narrowed back to what was important: my son, and the kids like him all across the country, the ones quietly living out their stories every single day with no fanfare and no media attention.”

With regards to the people who attacked her online, Chandra said, “I hope they heard me when I said I want to fight for something better for all of us, for those of us whose children rely on the protections afforded by the current laws and for those of us who are struggling under the system as it stands now.”


read more: http://ow.ly/g7QT30ds26i

[dalton99a]

1. It's their economic anxiety talking

Those people are evil, and you can never change them - ever.

[RKP5637]

2. It's quite true. Friends have told me for a very long time I'm too hopeful, that there are

people so evil, so rotten, so ignorant or a combination there of that one can't help/change them. And they will F you over for their enjoyment given the chance.

[oberliner]

4. Don't mix up the baskets

The existence of these horrible people does not the negate the existence of the less horrible people (who do actually have economic anxiety). There are multiple baskets, as HRC said.

[kcr]

25. I don't think there was any mixing up happening, there.

There have actually been some who attempt to explain that type of shitty behavior on economic anxiety.

[Eliot Rosewater]

26. Yeah, there is NO way you can confuse someone with economic anxiety with someone

self censored area here...i cant say what I want, but I was agreeing with you in extreme ways

And now I will self censor in fear of the reality that liberals are no longer safe here.

[oberliner]

27. Point taken

Just saying that not every Trump voter is in the deplorable basket, per HRC.

[hatrack]

28. Just most of them . . .

.

[kcr]

29. And I don't think that was meant as a dig at Trump voters, but the people who defend them n/t

[brutus smith]

6. I agree! They will never change.

[NutmegYankee]

3. And these same people will say "Abortion is bad, it kills babies!!!"

Which of course instantly uncovers the real reason they oppose abortion rights, because it's actually an empowerment of women. They don't care about life, only money and power.

[oberliner]

5. Internet trolls are internet trolls

Not to be confused with actual human beings.

[IronLionZion]

10. I doubt they would all be pretending though

a good many of them must be horrible people in real life too

[Plucketeer]

21. I have to agree with you

There are folks who don't even CARE what they're commenting about. They literally get their jollies just shitting on others. I grew up with a neighbor kid who would wait until he saw you unsuspectingly standing next to a mud puddle - so he could run up and stomp in it. And in the summertime - when playing with squirt guns was a way to cool off, this kid would duck behind a tree and fill his gun with pee.

[lunasun]

17. + A zillion the scary empowerment of women

[spanone]

7. aren't we a kind and empathetic nation?

fuck no

[IronLionZion]

20. No matter how kind you are

German children will always be kinder.

[StatGirl]

34. Nice pun! NT

[spanone]

40. hahahaaa

[ck4829]

8. These people are no better than Daesh

Maybe they are worse; the people there do have a civil war and a collapsed government, we've got public healthcare, fluoride in the drinking water, a public education system, an infrastructure, and more. They've got no excuse.

[IronLionZion]

9. I don't know how to teach people to care about other people

If they don't learn it as a child, it's probably too late. The "I want mine, F everyone else" crowd are numerous enough to defeat us in elections. It's insane. It caused the decline of unions, and opposition to "public" or "universal" things, and any notions of the chain is only as strong as the weakest link.

People are the worst

[bigtree]

11. it's always been

...even so, there have been varying degrees in which, society as a whole, has tolerated these behaviors over the years.

[roamer65]

12. May each and every one of these trolls die a slow and painful death of natural causes.

Last edited Sat Jul 8, 2017, 01:13 PM - Edit history (1)

[dalton99a]

13. +1

[WinkyDink]

14. My advice: Stop posting personal stuff on the Internet.

[IronLionZion]

18. Then the terrorists win

She got many more supporters than trolls. Posting medical bills raises awareness of the extremely high costs compared to what her copay ended up being because she had insurance. A lot of people don't know that.

[deurbano]

23. People who have benefited from Medicaid and/or ObamaCare have been sharing their testimonies

to let everyone know how critical this health care coverage is to the lives of millions of Americans and/or their loved ones. They are attempting to affect public opinion (and put pressure on congressional Republicans) on behalf of all of us.

[WinkyDink]

24. Fair enough. Then I'll amend my comment: Don't REPLY on the Internet to critics.

[deurbano]

33. See my post below. (Replying wasn't very effective.)

[Va Lefty]

15. If there's such a thing as karma, and I go back and forth on this...

these assholes have a dire future awaiting them

[lpbk2713]

16. The internet opened up a whole new world for people to display their stupid.

Now they can do it anonymously.

[pangaia]

19. "Conservatives Without a Conscience"

[Plucketeer]

22. For sure!

The very BEST of compassionate conservatism.

[Calculating]

30. I'll explain their reasoning bluntly as I can

Not that I agree with all the meanness, but they do have reasons for being like this.
-Society has a finite amount of money to treat the sick. It needs to be allocated wisely to do the most good possible.
-People who are barely making ends meet and working hard for like $50k per year might go a little apeshit at the thought of one kid taking up so much of society's resources. Meanwhile they struggle just to afford the braces for their kid, or to pay the bill for the kid's broken arm.
-Some people probably think in cases like this (where the victim was simply born unfathomably messed up) it might be better to simply 'let nature take it's course and have another kid'. Society cannot afford to spend millions of dollars desperately trying to keep someone alive if they were born in a state that simply wasn't meant to be. There's not enough money to do this, and no amount of emotion will change that. Healthcare is bankrupting our nation.
-Trying to save everybody will ultimately lead to less care for everybody. Society needs to allocate resources to those who can be treated in the most practical fashion first.

[roamer65]

31. Their ideology applies to everyone else's kids, but not their own.

With this addendum...one then has their warped mindset nailed down.

[jmowreader]

35. This is the problem with that line of reasoning

If it was their own child who was born unfathomably screwed up, they would demand society pump as much money as needed into attempting to fix it. And they would attack with tiger-like ferocity anyone claiming otherwise.

No, Calculating, they are not worried about economics. They are sociopaths. They will attack people just for the hell of it.

[deurbano]

37. No, they cheer on "saving" Terry Schiavo. And fetuses. They just hate anything they are brainwashed

to associate with liberals. You are projecting your own considered concerns onto them, but they aren't "considering" anything; they are just reacting (as they have been conditioned to react) to any perceived criticism of their God-Emperor.

Many of us struggle to afford braces for our kids (and the families who really struggle don't get them), but that doesn't turn us into assholes with no compassion for this mother's situation, no matter what we think about the appropriate allocation of health care resources.

Also, while the case can be made for choosing to let "nature take its course" in certain situations, that's a devastating decision (to be made by the parties directly involved), and a new child cannot simply "replace" the one lost. In any case, the child in question doesn't have a condition so dire as to warrant such a painful choice. And health care spending could be greatly reduced if we could finally get to single payer and stop dramatically overpaying for medical services and medications compared to other countries. Start there and with "defense" spending before deciding the life of the next Stephen Hawking-- or the life of someone like my daughter, who is quadriplegic with a speech disability as a result of cerebral palsy-- is not worth the resource allocation.

[Hekate]

41. They are so effed up that Terry Schiavo and that poor brain dead baby in the UK can be used...

...in this country for political gain.

[deurbano]

32. My daughter was at the San Francisco "die-in" where the impatient Road Rage Warrior plowed into the

Last edited Sat Jul 8, 2017, 04:19 PM - Edit history (2)

assembled protesters. It was a 10-minute occupation of the street in front of the federal building (approved in advance by the police), organized by senior/disability advocates to protest the proposed Medicaid cuts (etc.) in the Senate health care bill. Road Rage Warrior, a 45 supporter, was trying to protest the protesters when he drove into them at the 7-minute mark.

Later, my husband noticed a Facebook "friend" (husband of the daughter of longtime family friends) posting on a thread in support of the Road Rage Warrior with a particularly offensive photo and comment. In fact, most of the thread commenters seemed to think their hero showed remarkable restraint and should have just run over the protesters. My husband decided not to respond to their crude and hateful comments with crudeness and hatefulness (even though he was pissed off that they were cheering on a toddler-like meltdown that had put our daughter's safety at risk), but instead to explain the reasons for the protest and to inform them about what had actually happened. He reminded the "friend" that his wife and our daughter-- who is quadriplegic and has used a wheelchair all her life-- were childhood friends, and then he tried to explain the urgency of the situation, and the devastating effects that the proposed healthcare cuts would have on people with disabilities, the elderly and their loved ones. It was an attempt to humanize the situation, and get the posters beyond their reflexive thinking about "libtard" protesters who apparently deserve whatever they get.

My husband pointed out the protesters had assembled legally, with the permission of the police, and that it was the Road Rage Warrior who had broken the law by driving the wrong way on a one-way street and by plowing into (legally assembled) pedestrians (as opposed to choosing a legal way to protest the protesters).... and that we have frequent street closures in San Francisco lasting a lot longer than ten minutes, so maybe this Road Rage Warrior is too delicate for urban life. Would it be okay to plow into a parade... or the Bay to Breakers... or a movie being filmed.. or a block party? (Since the thread consensus was any attempts to block a street are illegal, and the motorcyclist was just exercising HIS rights.) And my husband shared a photo of a 2009 march protesting (proposed) Obamacare in Washington-- with the roads closed. My husband also pointed out that there would be posters on the thread (and/or their loved ones) who would be affected by the proposed changes, and that 45 had previously promised NOT to cut Medicaid. (He provided a link to 45's own tweet confirming that.) He explained the proposed cuts could take away the ability of people with disabilities to live independently and could force seniors out of assisted living housing.

Anyway, that was all a futile attempt at engagement because they have no critical thinking skills (or even the ability to recognize their own self-interest)... just reflex reactions conditioned by a constant bombardment of (actual) fake news. We are the enemy (nothing more), and it turns out the protesters were only there because they were "butt hurt" Clinton didn't win... and by the way, she cheated Bernie out of the nomination, and lost in spite of having put out a hit on Seth Rich. But the best was the poster who was (I guess) trying to say health care cuts don't matter because there are already "places" to send "retards in wheelchairs" like my daughter.

This is their hero (sorry it's from the Daily Mail), and it's "funny" to realize that it's the very libtards whose free speech he was trying to silence who will defend HIS right to free speech (he works in the porn industry):

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4633180/The-nut-plowed-crowd-protesters.html

The next week, there was a much longer and bigger "die-in" in front of the federal building. (Nevertheless, they persisted.) This time Christine Pelosi attended with a message from her mother. All three of my children were there, with my son reading his sister's health care testimony for her since she also has a speech disability. Libtards prevail.

[Initech]

36. And they say we're the violent lunatics. WTF!

[McCamy Taylor]

38. The flip side of Calvanism is if someone else gets something, you get less.

As if there is only so much salvation to go around. THis is why Trump appeals to whites who think they do better if someone who is brwon does worse.

[Skittles]

39. this is the "pro-life" crowd