Ugly Americans Who Think that Sickness is a Moral Failing

[McCamy Taylor]

We probably all remember the woman who was heckled by Tea Partiers at a health care town hall when she tried to describe her dilemma. Afflicted by rheumatoid arthritis---a crippling condition in which the immune system destroys healthy joints—she faced a choice. She could pay $700 a month for the medication that kept her disease in remission. Or, she could pay the property tax on her home. As the hired guns for the health insurance industry hooted and jeered, the woman in the wheelchair bravely raised her voice so that she could be heard.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x364340

In an interview done a few days later, “Woman in Wheelchair” was revealed to be Marianne Hoynes.

It would have been one thing to speak in a situation where the audience was respectful. But to speak about something painful and personal in front of a crowd of screaming maniacs was quite another."

"I was exhausted from the two hour wait and I considered not speaking, but I was just tired of taking it silently. I shut them out. I forced myself not to cry while I was reading my statement."

"You don't cry in front of bullies, right?" she says with a dose of pride.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Heckled-Woman-in-Wheelchai-by-Chaz-Valenza-090908-546.html

Who can forget the moment when Tea Partiers told a man with Parkinson’s Disease “You get nothing for free. You have to work.”? Did the heckler have any idea what Parkinson’s Disease does to the body or how difficult it can be to work when your hands shake, your muscles are weak, your speech is slurred and you fall down if you try to walk at anything faster than a slow shuffle?

http://rackjite.com/archives/4733-Video-Republican-Tea-Party-mocks-man-with-Parkinsons-Disease.html

Even I was stunned---and ashamed of my country---- when Tea Partiers called Rep. John Lewis a n____. This is a man whose skull was fractured by police officers four decades ago, as he lead a peaceful march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. And what can you say about the Tea Partier that spat on Rep. Emanuel Cleaver? The right wing protesters gathered that day used the dirty politics of fear and intimidation that you would expect to find in a fascist country, not in the USA. Why? Because their lives were being threatened? Because their sons has been conscripted into the army to fight a war for oil? No, they were furious that some sick person somewhere in their country might get a little relief from his pain and suffering.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/03/20/90772/rep-john-lewis-charges-protesters.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/28/congressman-spit-on-by-te_n_516300.html

Can right wing America get any uglier than this? As ex-Alaska governor Sarah Palin would say, you betcha. Rush Limbaugh, who started the whole lets-mock-a-Parkinson’s-sufferer trend, laughed at the victims of the Japanese earthquake/tsunami/nuclear disaster.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/16/rush-limbaugh-mocks-japan-refugees_n_836384.html

Glenn Beck mocked a woman---on the air---for having a miscarriage.

http://firedoglake.com/2009/09/23/glenn-beck-mocked-womans-miscarriage-on-the-air/

Michelle Malkin jeered at David Axelrod’s daughter, who suffers from epilepsy.

http://mediamatters.org/blog/200910260019

The right wing in America believes that if you are sick or injured, it is your own damn fault. In other words, sickness is a moral failing, and anyone who requests medical help is a sinner trying to take the rest of us down to hell with him.

Pretty convenient philosophy for the corporate backers of the Tea Party. With medical debt being the number one cause of bankruptcy in this country, banks can count on lots of maxed out credit cards and home foreclosures when people are kept sick and suffering. Health insurers can discriminate against those with “pre-existing conditions” on the grounds that these folks are weak willed sinners who do not deserve health care. Medicare becomes an enabler of sin----how dare all those Americans allow themselves to grow old? How dare they get diabetes and high blood pressure? How selfish! Give that money to a health insurance company which can “manage” all those sick people, much the same way that the Catholic Church used to extort money from its faithful in exchange for remittance of their sins. And make them pay top dollar for their drugs. It’s good for the economy---of Switzerland, France and Great Britain, where over half of them are made. If the sick can’t work, at least they can generate a profit for their corporate masters.

From the first article above:

"The minute I was diagnosed it was like the medical system strapped on the feed bag."

At this moment in time, the right wing exists for one purpose---to reduce human lives to cold hard cash, and toss what is left over into the trash bin. But it can't do that, unless it can convince itself that its victims are shameful, sinful, less than human.

[CBHagman]

1. Well said.

At this moment in time, the right wing exists for one purpose---to reduce human lives to cold hard cash, and toss what is left over into the trash bin. But it can't do that, unless it can convince itself that its victims are shameful, sinful, less than human.

It is indeed a very harsh stance the GOP has taken -- for years, I might add, even during the so-called compassionate conservative era of George W. Bush. I doubt many people heard about it, but an economic adviser in the last Bush administration expressed the view that employer-provided health insurance is the equivalent of giving away free groceries and encouraging people to load up on the lobster and steak. In a nutshell, the GOP has encouraged shopping for health care -- never mind that what people want is not the cheapest oncologist around but medical professionals who are competent and trustworthy and available.

[Lars39]

2. Next thing you know they'll be starting the "Categories of Life" a la Torchwood.

Dehumanizing our fellow citizens makes genocide possible.

[dotymed]

44. I always follow that series and have had the same thoughts.

[Lars39]

52. I wasn't expecting that plot twist...just blew me away to see how easy it came about.

[tclambert]

64. That's their plan for reducing unemployment.

If you can't find a job before your unemployment benefits run out, they'll march you to the incinerators.

To be clear, they (Tea Partiers, Republicans, Libertarians) haven't come out and said this yet, but it won't surprise me when they do.

[SmileyRose]

3. Cutting edge medical technology is a 2 edged sword IMHO.

But we've hit a point where doctors make more money off ownership of the treatments and diagnostics than they do patient care. Where stockholders matter more than patients. Where human beings are "assets" or "liabilities". So while we do marvel at medicine's ability to be able the save the unsavable - we have the medical system strapping on the feed bag as well.

There is a fine line between expecting cutting edge care for everyone and the few bleeding the rest of the country dry. Teabaggers get a little confused I think on where that line is and who's really the victim in all of it. One minute they are screaming "death panels" and the next "kill medicare" -- obviously they are confused.

[TheMadMonk]

5. And that is indeed a major problem. $1,000,000 to save one baby...

...with congenital defects and a significant chance of being "developmentally challenged" regardless, or $1,000,000 to innoculate 100,000 and save perhaps 500 from death by DPT or MMR. (numbers chosen for illustrative purposes.)

If money truly was tight, then it might even be a dilema that had to be adressed.

But the problem is not, not enough money, the problem is: Those charged with it's disbursement, are doing so with an eye towards preserving or advancing their own position, not serving those in their care.

[McCamy Taylor]

8. Since health care costs in the trillions, it isn't the single transplant that breaks the bank,

it is the millions who are given meds costing a thousand dollars a year (or two or three times that much) that do not do anything at all----those are the ones that add up. Our FDA bans generics and rubber stamps new patent drugs that it knows have not been tested (see Baycol). And then there are all the orthopedic surgeries that don't accomplish squat except pay the mortgage for the surgeon and the anesthesiologist and the hospital CEO. In other countries, you have to try physical therapy and medication and maybe a few injections before you can get a surgeon to muck around with your spine. Not in the USA, you don't. Just flash your insurance card or say "It was an MVA. The other driver was at fault and is fully insured" and you are taken straight to the OR.

In my day (back in the ice age) women in routine uncomplicated labor did not get induced or get internal fetal monitors unless they needed it for medical reasons. The result was fewer forceps, fewer C-sections, fewer infections. We have truly become the nation whose delivery room must have the machine which goes "ping!".

[dotymed]

46. My BC/BS "for profit" insurer

"writes off" over 90% of the Dr.'s bill, before they pay. The Dr.'s stay in the "network," so all of the extra charges must be pure profit.

OTOH, my uninsured sister is expected to pay all of the charges, most "up-front."

IMO, if the "for profit" insurance companies were out of the picture, then medical costs would plummet.

The CBO agrees.

They artificially inflate the costs, and then do not have to pay them. Only the uninsured do.

[truedelphi]

60. That is such a great post. And as much as I share the TP'ers concern for a decent National Budget

As I assume any thinking person would, the fact of the matter is that it is not the medical needs of the nation's infirm, or the elderly, or the baby hanging on to life with a mere whisper and two million dollars worth of techniques and equipment - it is our wars and also the incredible looting that is going on at The Federal Reserve that most afflict our National Budget.

Depending on which critic you choose to believe, we have spent already some two trillion to twenty trillion on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And again, depending on who you believe, we have had some nine to thirty trillions of dollars on account of the Paulson(Kashkari)/Bernanke/Geithner raids on the Federal Reserve. (The Bernie Sanders mandated audit showed us a brief window of occurrences inside the Federal Reserve - and the amount that audit showed was Nine Trillion dollars. Enough money to run the bankrupt state of California, and help out its 37 million people, for the next 133 years!)

Just taking a middle figure of 23.5 trillion bucks, that means every individual in the USA has to somehow compensate for $ 77K!

[booley]

4. It's the money

I am sure tea baggers would have no problem with the sick.. if only the sick would stay out of sight and not get any money from tea baggers.

In short I am sure they are very sorry for someone's crippling possibly life saving illness but not enough to risk even potentially spending one penny on someone they dont' feel is worthy of it.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

6. I'm old enough to remember news footage of mobs of white people, their faces contorted with hatred,

screaming at black schoolchildren and being held back from attacking them only by National Guardsmen.

I thought we had grown past that. I guess not. The ugliness is there, and the right-wing shills reawaken it with some of the same racist appeals that the segregationists used in the 1950s.

One that I saw in the health care debate was that getting universal health care would bankrupt the country because the hard-earned dollars of (white suburban and rural--i.e. the only "real" Americans in the right-wing mindset) taxpayers would be going to treat endless streams of illegal immigrants who would flood across the border to have their "anchor babies" for free.

Blaming the victim for illness ("We don't have too many uninsured people. We have too many fat people," etc.) was another common talking point.

That kind of ugliness has always been there, but by publicizing the Tea Party goons and not publicizing those on the left who are peacefully protesting wars and advocating for justice, the media have a lot to answer for.

[kestrel91316]

7. This shouldn't shock anyone who understands the christofascists:

they take the bible quite literally when it talks about illnesses befalling people because they have disobeyed Gawd or failed morally in some way.

Like poverty, illness is seen as proof positive that you have displeased Gawd. And Gawd LOVES to punish entire groups for the sins of a few, so these people are probably terrified that Gawd will strike them dead for the sins of another.

[999998th word]

11. Calvinist and dominionism 'fundies' sponsored by the

acolytes of ayn rand.
True believers-they HAVE TO CLING to these bastard beliefs, in order for them to rationalize their selfishness. They have to prop each other up.
It has served their purpose-in one form or another-for many hundreds of years ( the old aristocracy thought they were preordained from God to rule). The serfs were even conned.
Denial of this, to these 'true believers' means death, on many levels. They will fight w/everything WE have to maintain, protect, and further their delusions.
This is insidious, and extremely dangerous, and happening with lightning speed.
:rant: :wtf:

[liberalhistorian]

30. And yet they totally ignore

the New Testament and Jesus's constant demands (yes, demands) for compassion and care toward the sick and ailing and his healing of them without regard to monetary/social status or cause. In fact, he had very harsh words to say for those who put status and money and judgment above all else (the Pharisees, who were the equivalent then of our right wing today) and who ignored the needs of the sick, ailing, poor and elderly or who put "conditions" on them. Jesus would not know these people today, despite their claims to be the only "true" Christians.

[FiveGoodMen]

47. Too bad they don't read all of their book.

When Job's friends wrote off his bad luck as punishment, god showed up and told them off.

Of course, god was just fucking with Job to settle a bet and didn't mind killing off his family to do it...

So again, too bad they don't read the whole book. Because then they'd never believe it.

[Yavapai]

58. They talk about sickness and god's healing,

but I notice that they go to the medical doctor for treatment.

If god heals the sick, why does he hate amputees so much? http://www.whydoesgodhateamputees.com/

[FiveGoodMen]

59. Yeah, that site has a GREAT point to make.

Almost no one listens, though.

[Kennah]

9. The Tea Baggers haven't started issuing uniforms, yet. I'm thinking something in a nice brown.

[The Wizard]

17. There's no nice way to say

Nazi

[alp227]

65. HA! I was thinking that too, although I believe say Nazi = lose the argument normally n/t

[Kennah]

66. If it threatens and uses violence like a duck ...

... although a goose stepping duck should seem to violate the laws of nature.

[Odin2005]

10. Calvinism: The belief that poverty and disability are a sign of damnation by God.

I've had people tell me that I "have no soul" because I am on the autism spectrum. A dear friend of mine, who is physically disabled as a result of being shaken as a baby, had her disability used against her during the trial of her rapist. People will make their kids avoid obviously disabled people.

[hifiguy]

22. Calvin + Rand + Milton Friedman

equals hell on earth and the quick extinguishing of 75-90% of the human race.

[Zambero]

27. The Pharisees were the Calvinists of their time

and vice-versa. In his day, Christ labelled the self-righteous as "whited sepulchres", meticulously sculpted and polished on the outside, and corrupt on the inside.

[area51]

12. Kick.

Each day, 273 people die due to lack of health care in the U.S.; that's 100,000 deaths per year. This is not only a moral issue, but a national security issue that we're so vulnerable given that our health care delivery system is so fragmented and dysfunctional.

We need single-payer health care, not a welfare bailout for the serial-killer insurance agencies.

We don't need the GingrichCare of mandated, unregulated, for-profit insurance that is still too expensive, only pays parts of medical bills, denies claims, bankrupts and kills people.

Republican '93 plan:

"Subtitle F: Universal Coverage - Requires each citizen or lawful permanent resident to be covered under a qualified health plan or equivalent health care program by January 1, 2005."

"We will never have real reform until people's health stops being treated as a financial opportunity for corporations."

"Employer-based health insurance has always been a bad idea. Your life should not depend on who you work for." -- T. McKeon

"Any proposal that sticks with our current dependence on for-profit private insurers ... will not be sustainable. And the new law will not get us to universal coverage ...." -- T.R. Reid, The Healing of America

"Despite the present hyperbole by its supporters, this latest effort will end up as just another failed reform effort littering the landscape of the last century." --John Geyman, M.D., Hijacked! The Road to Single Payer in the Aftermath of Stolen Health Care Reform

[aquart]

13. Calvinist.

Poverty and illness is proof that God has pre-damned you. Wealth is proof that God loves you and intends you to go to Heaven. Comfortable religion for the rich.

[unapatriciated]

14. that is what I have experienced

I still remember the day my step-son and his wife came to the hospital to visit (pray over him) my son (diagnosed with dermatomyositis in 1991). My step-son stated my son was being punished for my sins (I was divorced). It is their belief that it is God punishing us for our sins. I asked them to leave and banned them from visiting. I want no part of a god that punishes the least among us.

[Zambero]

24. Guess they haven't read the not-so-fine print (in the Scriptures)

If they had, the self-serving Calvinist crowd would realize that the very teachings of Christ that they pretend to abide by specifically direct them to assist the poor and the sick, time and time again. There's no blind eye wiggle room for them. They would also realize that, according to Christ, wealth was problematic and an obstacle to salvation. And all that Good Samaritan stuff, sinners not throwing stones at another sinner, and turning the other cheek -- that must have been a bad joke, right? It's gonna be "god & guns", my way, all the way!

[aquart]

37. Matthew 25:41-46

My favorite.

[SheilaT]

42. Maybe their version of the Bible skips those

verses? It might be interesting, if actually with some Bible-quoting jerk, to pull out a copy of the New Testament and make the jerk read those verses.

[aquart]

72. The Bible can be a delightful tool.

Try telling them that Christianity owes everything to a woman with her ass in the air. (Boaz first saw Ruth gleaning.)

[ScottLand]

15. Sad to see our country reduced to this.

Do the people that believe that "bad things don't happen to good people" reconcile themselves that they're bad too when something finally happens to them or is that when they just blame Obama?

[Volaris]

57. lol it does seem that way sometimes, doesn't it?

I think its a kind of narcissism, in that EVERYTHING becomes subjective, EVERYTHING centers on them...
A hurricane floods an american city, well that's God telling them that Gay people (sinners) are bad, instead of the OBJECTIVE fact that if you build that city below sea-level, and then don't maintain the levees, its kinda inevitable that eventually that city will flood.(Duh!!!!).

The enlightened among us know (or are on the path to realizing) the following truth: While The Universe might not actually be out to get you, it more than likely does NOT have a vested interest in your continued survival.

shedding yourself of the belief that you are Cosmically significant is THE DOOR, its THE first step to doing something HUMANLY significant with the remainder of your life. The above-mentioned Narcissism is "the last fig leaf", so to speak, and "its not until we have lost EVERYTHING, that we're free to do anything."

[Fumesucker]

16. And also ugly Americans that claim an individual private mandate is "progressive"..

Private insurance is what caused us to have such a fucked up medical care delivery system in the first place, making sure that every swinging dick and bouncing boob in America is forced to buy private insurance Is.Not.Going.To.Fix.The.System.

[Fuzzbuzz]

18. K&R

nt

[ThatsMyBarack]

73. Welcome to DU, FuzzBuzz!

:hi:

[baldguy]

19. Alan Grayson was right: The RW health care plan is "Don't get sick. And if you do, die quickly."

[atreides1]

20. I have to disagree with you

The right wing exists for several purposes...as you noted one is to reduce human lives into making a profit, the other is to force a single religious fanaticism down the throats of all Americans and to create a country based on Biblical law...and to deny equal rights to all Americans.

That is the purpose of the right wing!

[Zambero]

29. They also concoct their own version of "Biblical Law"

It highlights and cherry picks the authoritarian and punitive aspects of the Old Testament, while ignoring the "love thy neighbor, help the poor and sick" aspects of the New Testament. And the basic prerequisite for any moral crusade is simple -- it must not cost you anything. Spare the expense of helping anyone less fortunate, just be against stuff like gay rights, reproductive freedoms, and, did I forget to mention immigrants? Hey, all this taking the moral "high ground" is cheap indeed!

[Irishonly]

21. Thank you

I keep trying to write something but my frustration is so great it keeps reading like a discombobulated rant. No one ever wants to become disabled.

[Johonny]

23. Given Teaparty comes from the religious right isn't the view not surprising

A large number of authors of the bible view on suffering was that it was a punishment from god for sinful behavior. As many people have pointed out the teaparty voters aren't a "new" thing. They tend to be a rebranding of the same people that called themselves part of the religious right in the 1990s. The religious right tend to focus on those books of the bible that focus on good things happen to righteous people and bad things to those that sin. There are other ideas on suffering in the bible, but if you want god to make you rich then you probably aren't reading those chapters too much :)

[Zambero]

25. The early "Libertarian" label for the Tea Party was way off

They are in fact big gov't conservatives when it comes to social issues -- get the gov't on YOUR back if I approve of reproductive rights, your ability to make personal decisions, "lifestyle", ethnic background, religious affiliation, etc. Yes, there's nothing new here except for the brand name.

[madamesilverspurs]

26. There is no logic.

Thirty years ago I was horrified when members of my brother's church asked him what he and his wife had done to cause God to punish their toddler son with cerebral palsey. The disgust was amplified when my brother lost his job due to pressure from the company's insurance provider that refused to cover the child.

Today it's baffling that my brother remains both fundamentalist and Republican.

[ceile]

28. K&R!

[w0nderer]

31. k&r for reading later n/t

[OwnedByFerrets]

32. Actually, its "poorness" they think is the moral failing

If you have money, you can be sick. If not, its your own damned fault.

[DirkGently]

33. Excellent.

[TomClash]

34. “You get nothing for free. You have to work.”

The telling quote.

When you pull the mask off you get its corollary - "Arbeit mach frei."

[tea and oranges]

35. Modern Scapegoating is Complicated

No longer as simple as annualy heaping the collective failings of a tribe onto a goat, ritually killing chosen animal, and then reading the entrails. This was done for the purpose of expiating sin.

The douche baggers (aka volunteer army for the oligarchs) have so many scapegoats they may as well be herders. Their (main)purpose is to deflect personal responsibility from themselves and blame from their rich overlords. It has no season.

If we read history we know that often this doesn't turn out well.

[chervilant]

36. And,

at this point in our evolution--where change is exponential--it's likely to result in a radical reduction in world population.

When the agribusinesses succeed in destroying our system of agriculture, rampant starvation will add to the growing civil strife. Water shortages will compound this unrest.

All the hate-mongering, fear-mongering pseudo-Christians will likely rise up and exercise their 2nd Amendment rights.

Urban areas will likely become deadly war zones.

Selfishly, I'm glad I'm in my twilight years...

[tea and oranges]

39. Me Too, Chervilant!

I've seen so much in my lifetime. And so much of it has been thrilling - the Civil Rights Movement, Stonewall, the 60's.

And now this? Whoda thunk it?

[Hydra]

49. Evil is implacable

You push it beat it back here and there, and it's already pushing through the cracks in every other direction.

In the end though, every change that was permitted to happen was done so for economic gain. Scary when you think about it that way.

[tea and oranges]

62. Evil IS Implacable

But times were once that we (as a country) did things that were right. Sure, we progressives may have had to fight for them, but we pushed our leaders into legislating for civil rights, family leave, Medicare, the end of the Vietnam war, etc.

Now, our leadership only has ears for the oligarchs who own them. That's what's different about today. The baggers get heard because they speak Koch-ese.

Also, xtianity has run its course! It's become a violent cult.

[Liberal_in_LA]

38. k&r!!

[sce56]

40. CUE the Rush, OxyCotin Dance!

Making fun of Michel J Fox's Parkinson's disease

[chervilant]

61. Oh, gag!!!

I always get a queasy stomach when I see that foul pustule on humanity's backside...

[sce56]

68. Saying that reminds me of his deferment from Vietnam a Boil on his Lard Ass!

[chervilant]

69. Indeed.

I'm glad someone caught my pun.

[pacalo]

41. Outstanding OP -- & a keeper.

[southernyankeebelle]

43. Funny how quick baggers turn liberal when one of them or their family members health is in

real danger, isn't it.

[PatSeg]

54. Isn't that the truth?

Illness is a moral failure when it happens to other people, but a true tragedy when it happens to them. Then all of a sudden they become so "entitled". Somehow they'll twist the situation to show how THEY earned the help they seek, whereas THOSE guys are lazy freeloaders.

[saras]

55. No, they don't. They turn selfish. No sickness in THEIR family will lead them to support others.

[polmaven]

45. Wow!

That is all I can think of to say about this piece...WOW!

Thank-you, McCamy....Thank you!

[LeftishBrit]

48. There is unfortunately a significant element of this in some elements of the Right in the UK too

One big preoccupation of the Tories at the moment is the idea that too many people are on disability benefits, and ought to be put back to work. While no doubt there are cases of fraud, as well as some who have been put on disability as part of earlier governments' attempts to massage unemployment statistics, this easily degenerates into ugly hate-campaigns against people with disabilities. A lot of the articles in the Daily Mail, Express, Sun, and other RW media exemplify this.

It is all part of the general tendency of the Right to favour the strong against the weak. Often this means the rich against the poor, but in addition can involve contempt for the physically weak.

[saras]

56. And the funny thing is that they are NOT strong, except joined together as fascists.

[jwirr]

50. Absolutely. One of the beautiful things is that sooner or later THEY

will hit this wall head-on. Put of course I am sure that is different!

[Dawson Leery]

51. ALL Calvinists, and that means EVERY LAST ONE WITHOUT EXCEPTION

are bad. Calvinists are of the worst.

[NOMOREDRUGWAR]

53. What a brave woman

Standing up to the Brownshirts, otherwise known as Tea Party members.

[SoapBox]

63. K & R

[Taverner]

67. Calvinism. The other ideology of hate nt

[louslobbs]

70. An excellent OP, thank you.

K&R
Lou

[ThatsMyBarack]

71. I truly believe THIS conspiracy exists:

Health-insurance companies trick "eligible" patients into purchasing a healthcare plan that "covers everything" (or almost). When the patients really need coverage for expensive medical procedures, the industries pull excuses out of their asses not to pay. Most patients simply cannot afford the healthcare cost the insurance company refuses to cover, yet the powers that be harass the patients for every red cent and more. Some patients get harassed by bill collectors ("EVER BEEN RAPED?! PAY UP OR GO TO JAIL!!").

It's a conspiracy to get innocent people thrown in Debtors' Prisons for Profit when health-insurance companies turn out to be crooks! :mad:

[Odin2005]

74. Insurance is like loaning out an umbrella, then demanding it back when it starts raining.