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“White House Takes on Elderly Cancer Patient”

And?  Take a pill, honey.  Time to die so that others might have some free shit.  Plus, it isn’t Obama’s fault that you’re going to have to take a dirt nap.  It’s that insurance companies simply refuse to make all the extra stuff they’re compelled to add to policies come in at price points cheaper than when they weren’t compelled to do so.  Or if you prefer, they are resisting magical thinking and economic wishcasting, the big meanies!

We conservatives are used to being portrayed as heartless villains. If progressives aren’t accusing us of pushing grandmothers off fiscal cliffs we’re lashing women to train tracks (using binders, of course). Team Obama even accused Mitt Romney of giving a woman cancer just to watch her die.

This tired media template was reversed as loathsome Obama spokesgremlin Dan Pfeiffer attacked a 62-year-old cancer patient on his official White House Twitter account.

Pfeiffer was responding to a heart-wrenching op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal written by a cancer patient who is losing her doctors and health insurance plan.

For almost seven years I have fought and survived stage-4 gallbladder cancer, with a five-year survival rate of less than 2% after diagnosis. I am a determined fighter and extremely lucky. But this luck may have just run out: My affordable, lifesaving medical insurance policy has been canceled effective Dec. 31.

My choice is to get coverage through the government health exchange and lose access to my cancer doctors, or pay much more for insurance outside the exchange (the quotes average 40% to 50% more) for the privilege of starting over with an unfamiliar insurance company and impaired benefits…

For a cancer patient, medical coverage is a matter of life and death. Take away people’s ability to control their medical-coverage choices and they may die. I guess that’s a highly effective way to control medical costs. Perhaps that’s the point.

Pfeiffer takes on this very ill woman by linking to silly Think Progress spin blaming “bad apple” insurance companies for Obama’s broken promises.

[…]

The White House has violated the old political adage, “If you’re explaining why cancer patients should lose their health insurance, you’re losing.”

Whatever. You can’t make a Utopian omelet without killing off a few sickly chickens who keep sucking up resources.  After all, the best way to make health care affordable is to make sure that sick people don’t exploit it by, like, using it and stuff.

41 Replies to ““White House Takes on Elderly Cancer Patient””

  1. Squid says:

    The White House has violated the old political adage, “If you’re explaining why cancer patients should lose their health insurance, you’re losing.”

    Yeah, but they’re just losing a PR battle, while the rest of us are losing our jobs, our freedoms, our dignity, and yes — our health insurance.

  2. happyfeet says:

    see the cancer patient lady has a last name like normal people

    unlike that Donna hooch in the last post

    I don’t think Donna is even real I think they made her up purely for propaganda reasons

  3. sdferr says:

    Julia done disappeared, I heard. Could be Donna is her replacement.

  4. Squid says:

    It’s not like this White House recognizes women as individual human beings in the first place.

  5. leigh says:

    It’s alive! The site is alive!

  6. newrouter says:

    welcome back. did you say sumthing bad about the valgal?

  7. Darleen says:

    Hey … I wondered where everything went!!

    Rove or Carney trying the DOS attacks?? Couldn’t have been Sebelius … she can’t even find the power button on her laptop.

  8. Pixy Misa says:

    Sorry, didn’t know the site was down. I reset the server to deal with another problem, and it looks like that fixed things.

  9. Pixy Misa says:

    Aha. Found the problem, all fixed. Everything should be stable again now.

  10. Patrick Chester says:

    Back online for now.

  11. BigBangHunter says:

    Couldn’t have been Sebelius … she can’t even find the power button on her laptop.

    – Theres a rumor going around that her laptop has never made it past the blue screen of death, which doesn’t exist in that form in Windows 8, and THAT should give you some idea as to why the web site worked so well.

  12. BigBangHunter says:

    – BTW, the early numbers are showing, on average, approximately 41% increase in premiums if a policy is cancelled for whatever reason.

    – But hey, you can keep your policy and doctor, you just can’t use them for, you know, health stuff.

  13. Ernst Schreiber says:

    I’m sad because the site is back but as of 12:07 am CST on 9/5, I’m in limbo

    fated for a certain time to comment the threads yet be unread as it were

  14. John Bradley says:

    I take it the ‘dillo has finally tired of whatever unspeakable acts he was visiting upon the poor little server-hamsters, and now sleeps the restorative, if somewhat sticky, Sleep of Great Shame.

    Rock on, little guy.

  15. sunny-dee says:

    I argued with my aunt back in 2010 that Obamacare would make cancer patients die. (Among the less obvious but probably longer-lasting side effects of Obamacare is limiting drug treatment regimens and reducing research and clinical trials.) When the FDA yanked approval of Avastin for end-stage breast cancer (so Medicare wouldn’t be required to cover it), my aunt actually said it was for the best, because too many people wouldn’t do what was right for their families.

    It took a second to sink in when she said it.

  16. currently says:

    I’m approaching 59 years old and I smoke cigarettes and drink adult beverages.

    Just kill me now (even though I feel fine and haven’t been to a doctor in decades – last visit was for a broken finger in the early 80’s).

    I’m sure lung cancer or a heart attack is waiting in the wings and I don’t want to burden the system.

    Thanks.

  17. geoffb says:

    President Barack Obama will go on the offensive this week to shift the public’s focus away from the catastrophic and politically damaging roll-out of his Obamacare network.

    He’s got a closed-door Nov. 4, meeting with political allies at his Organizing for America group, where he’s expected to tout the program which is driving up health-care costs for millions of Americans.

    Progressive progress. Offensive Forever Amen.

  18. Mueller says:

    Nah. Somebody at the NSA just hit the wrong button.

    Howdy boys! Now go fuck yourselves.

  19. SBP says:

    Wait: isn’t UnitedHealth the very company that Dear Leader has selected to fix his broken website?

    http://www.startribune.com/business/229304821.html

    Why, yes, yes, it is.

    And isn’t UnitedHealth a major Dear Leader donor?

    http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2013/10/key-figure-at-unitedhealth-group-was-major-obama-donor.html

    Why, yes, yes, it is.

    The shills at ThinkFascism might want to coordinate with Dear Leader a bit more closely.

  20. cranky-d says:

    Only the collective matters, Squid. Individuals can just fuck right off.

    You know what’s really hard to take? NPR propaganda just when you wake up. It was on at the gym. The last thing I heard them selling was the notion that health insurance companies jack up their rates because that’s how evil they are, and of course the government is all good. I turned if off.

  21. Neo says:

    If you were worried about privacy on the healthcare exchanges, you can now worry about fraud …

    WASHINGTON — The Affordable Care Act is the biggest new health care program in decades, but the Obama administration has ruled that neither the federal insurance exchange nor the federal subsidies paid to insurance companies on behalf of low-income people are “federal health care programs.”

    The surprise decision, disclosed last week, exempts subsidized health insurance from a law that bans rebates, kickbacks, bribes and certain other financial arrangements in federal health programs, stripping law enforcement of a powerful tool used to fight fraud in other health care programs, like Medicare.

    The main purpose of the anti-kickback law, as described by federal courts in scores of Medicare cases, is to protect patients and taxpayers against the undue influence of money on medical decisions.

    … Chicago comes to America

  22. Shermlaw says:

    In a similar vein, Barnes Jewish Hospital, the best hospital in Missouri and a top-twenty institution affiliated with the Washington University (St. Louis) Medical school is no longer a preferred provider for Anthem BC/BS on the exchanges. Thus, the middle class is shut out of the best care, which only the very poor or the very rich will be able to afford. Hope and Change! provided you’re immortal.

  23. McGehee says:

    It looks like PW has been targeted for trackback spam again. There’s a lot of it queued up “awaiting spam check” that looks like spam to me just on first glance. And at least a couple that actually got past the checker and got posted (I spam-marked the ones I saw).

    I wonder if this gap is associated with the error code lines that have appeared here from time to time, as well as possibly with the outage.

    Update: Looks like about 150 of them attempted mostly today. I’ve trashed them. But they’re still coming in.

    I also found a bunch of legitimate comments in moderation. I’ve let them out.

  24. bgbear says:

    The irony is that corporations that are bent on “evil” (however you define it) can’t really succeed without the cooperation of government. So no matter what, a dysfunctional or corrupt government really is the problem.

  25. leigh says:

    Thank you Pixy!

  26. McGehee says:

    Pixy, can you determine why legitimate comments are getting held in moderation? I can let them out when I have time, but I don’t really have a lot of it today.

    Also, why is trackback spam getting into the queue instead of being merde-canned on sight?

  27. RI Red says:

    Geez, Leigh, you almost gave me a heart attack when you said the site was alive. I thought you were talking about ObamaFail.

  28. leigh says:

    All the comments are stuck again, ja?

  29. McGehee says:

    Doesn’t look like it. Now the flow of TB spam has abated, and the comments seem to be posting immediately.

  30. leigh says:

    Ah, I see that now. Good. I was having withdrawals.

    OT: I just watched the WH Press Briefing. I wonder if Carney will ever be able to say that O lied? He’s tipped toed up to “misspoke” and run away by saying that clearly O’s lies are being taken out of context and that what he said isn’t what he said so stop saying that’s what he said.

    I was hoping for a freak-out like yesterday’s, but he seemed to have switched to decaf today. A shame.

  31. leigh says:

    Sorry, Red. That’s what I get for watching old horror films last week.

  32. sdferr says:

    Oh, he lied all right.

    It’s just that people are mistaking where he lied, exactly. I think it’s in this bit right here, about “will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend . . .”

  33. leigh says:

    Indeed, sdferr. He’s a lying liar who lies.

  34. geoffb says:

    This is one the White House web site.

    If You Like the Insurance You Have, Keep It:

    Nothing in the proposal forces anyone to change the insurance they have.

    Now when parsed this can be seen as true while what it implies is false.

    The key is in certain words and phrases. “The proposal,” the proposal is not the law as enacted and implemented. It was in the “Secretary shalls” where it was put into effect that any, even minor change, would remove your policy from the “grandfathered” status.

    “You,” “anyone,” you don’t have to change your insurance. The insurance company has to change it if it becomes not-grandfathered and/or doesn’t meet all the new standards. You can keep it as far as the government is concerned but the insurance companies can’t offer it. See how that works to shift the blame.

  35. leigh says:

    Yes, it’s a lie and a great big one. Insurance policies are subject to tweaks that happen annually, at the least. Under the way the ACA is written any change voids your policy. It doesn’t matter if the change is for the better. It’s changed, so it’s out.

    So far they haven’t taken over homeowners or auto insurance since they fluctuate like mad when ever there are natural disasters or lousy drivers in your insurance pool.

    I expect them to cast a wider net in the future, so stay tuned.

  36. leigh says:

    That’s like Zeke Emmanuel comparing health insurance to car insurance.

  37. sdferr says:

    Maybe the LibFascists (yes, we’re lookin’ at you, Ms.Poodle) should just go with the old Cretan sailor ploy in order to fool a few people into believing they tell the truth once in a while: “Everything I say is a lie”.

  38. geoffb says:

    From “fake but accurate” to an inaccurate lie about a so-called “accurate” lie.

  39. SBP says:

    The newest spin is that the great genius Obama had to put it in simple-minded terms so that the simple-minded populace would understand it.

    http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/obamas-simple-promises-vex-complex-health-rollout-20785330

    Oh, they understand it all right, Barry.

  40. leigh says:

    They certainly do, Spies.

    Even our paid trolls haven’t dropped in to tell us how wonderful is the Wan. They must be waiting for the talking points before they dip in a toe.

Comments are closed.