Oh, goodie. More shitbaggery. More “Fuck you. I got mine.” Those GOPers make you feel all warm and fuzzy and safe. NOT.
You’ll want to take a few deep breaths. I did. And I’m still frustrated.
Leave it to the GOP to drive home the points I was making in By The Bootstraps from the 26th of April. (Pictured above is former congress person Joe Walsh’s twitter response to Jimmy Kimmel’s monologue about his newborn son’s heart surgery. I left my responses in the screen capture because they’re the TL;DR version of this post.)
Shitbag Number One, Mo Brooks: According to Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama, (in a CNN interview as reported by Salon) “people who lead good lives” don’t have to worry about dealing with pre-existing conditions. Our concerns about the AHCA are silly to him because if we lead good lives we won’t need to concern ourselves that their “replacement” for the ACA doesn’t cover pre-existing conditions.
So newborn babies like Jimmy Kimmel’s, a few hours old, have already sinned (or whatever not leading a good life means for an infant). And that also means that all those people who have strokes or get cancer, even the children, aren’t living right. Oh, and the asthmatics, anyone who has allergies or diabetes, MS, MD. Mental health issues are right out, of course. All these people and many more don’t “lead good lives” and don’t deserve affordable insurance even if they have that condition literally when they’re born. They should have to struggle for health care, for insurance they can afford, for the rest of their lives.
You know, punishment for not living right. Fuck them. We got ours, right?
But that’s not how insurance works. Yes, some people have conditions (or acquire them at some point in their lives) that mean their health care coverage is going to have higher costs than a young, healthy, non-smoker. We all pay premiums for coverage starting very young knowing that our insurance will cover us in case of an emergency or illness. We might never have a major health issue in our lives, but statistically we probably will. I mean, nobody is getting out of this alive.
Enter Shitbag Number Two, Joe Walsh: Jimmy Kimmel did a heartfelt monologue on his show Monday night explaining what happened after his new son Billy was born. See the monologue if you haven’t already (have tissues nearby), but the short version is they did emergency heart surgery, and Billy will be fine, but the baby will need two more surgeries. Former Illinois congress person, Joe Walsh, put in his two cents with the tweet (pictured above), “Sorry Jimmy Kimmel: your sad story doesn’t obligate me or anybody else to pay for somebody else’s health care.”
Yeah, seriously, the congress man has no idea how insurance works. And no, Walsh’s not exactly “living right” by the usual standards. You won’t have to go far to find the stories about his job woes related to his hate/racism or that he’s a deadbeat dad. These “personal responsibility” shitbags are quick to tell you what you should be doing, what you’re doing wrong and why you should be punished, but they can’t be bothered to pay for their own kids or health insurance, etc. I hear Illinois has an amazing pension for their retired lawmakers so can’t imagine what this guy’s problem is with paying his bills.
And I have not forgotten about Shitbag Number Three, Paul Ryan, and all the others in congress who are working hard day and night to trash our health care system and replace it with a tax bill so that insurance company executives can deduct more of their inflated salaries. Ryan tells reporters (of the ACHA) “This is who we are. This will define us.” The Speaker of The House is proud that what defines the GOP is the greed and apathy, the shitbaggery, that is this AHCA. They are using this tax bill as the reason to boot millions off their health care (in large part using pre-existing conditions, see Shitbag Number One’s comment above).
Who pays for people who can’t pay their medical bills? We do, mostly. We pay it in bankruptcies and higher insurance premiums and taxes. The more people who are covered with actual health insurance, the more we save, the better we do keeping costs down and sharing them as a society. Imagine if we covered everyone, and the government had the ability to negotiate the prices for drugs and care on a huge scale? for health care for everyone?
We’re already paying for everyone, anyway. How much could we, as a nation, save if people could get check-ups, preventative care, prenatal care, birth control, proper medications? How much could we save if people did not have to wait until a health situation was dire and then rack up bills for emergency services and emergency doctors?
All these people who live the “I got mine” mantra would sing a completely different tune if there was nobody to pick up the slack when they didn’t pay their child support. If there was no safety net when they lost their jobs. If there was nobody to pick up the slack when they didn’t have insurance, if there was no Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, Meals On Wheels, SNAP. How are they going to do when they no longer have clean air and water? That’s coming soon. Sooner than they think.
These greedy fucks can pretend they aren’t benefiting from living in this society with these safety nets, but that doesn’t make it so. And there is no excuse for this pride in selfishness and meanness, for pretending that their behavior is normal and represents America. No excuse. We help each other. That is what people do.
So no, Jimmy Kimmel’s story does not obligate Shitbag Number Two to pay for somebody else’s health care. What does obligate Shitbag Number Two to help cover other people’s health care costs is the fact that he is a human being, an American, who benefits from participating in the health insurance system.
It’s surprisingly easy to let our humanity define us, to embrace it (and each other). These shitbags are expending a lot of energy to push everyone away, but as members of society, by simply being here and paying taxes and working, they’re paying for their part anyway. They might as well let the system work.
Let that define us.
Link to tweet: https://twitter.com/WalshFreedom/status/859462346275782656
#Obligation