Recently, an event called the Values Voters Summit was held in Washington DC. It's a kind of big-tent showcase for the fundamentalist far-right base of the Republican Party, sponsored by such leading conservative lights as the Family Research Council, the Heritage Foundation, and Jerry Falwell's Liberty University. Some of the featured speakers included Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Insane), Gary Bauer, Bill Bennett, the wildly fertile Duggar family, Newt Gingrich, Sean Hannity, anti-masturbation candidate and occasional dabbler in witchcraft Christine O'Donnell, Phyllis Schlafly, Mitt Romney, and of course, Sarah Palin.
You can imagine the sort of demented gibberish that came from the podium over the weekend, and frankly, most of it was too mind-numbing to repeat in any detail. Newt Gingrich did his little song and dance about how Islam is coming to eat your children. Christine O'Donnell reprised the nonsense about "death panels." One fellow, a senior aide to Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), argued that all pornography is by nature homosexual, and therefore watching any form of pornography will make the viewer instantly gay. Gay people in general, a woman's right to choose and all things Obama took it in the chops, with plenty of birth certificate speculation to go around.
So, yeah, it was pretty standard stuff, given the roster of speakers who made the scene. But at one point during the event, new ground was broken in truly astonishing fashion. One becomes accustomed to cruel, insensitive, hate-filled rhetoric from the kind of people who dwell in this particular region of politics, but when Mike Huckabee took the stage, a whole new standard was set.
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 [to] 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.
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