The GOPs new brand of freedom: The privilege of being without health insurance

[applegrove]

by JIM HIGHTOWER at Salon

http://www.salon.com/2017/06/17/the-gops-new-brand-of-freedom-the-privilege-of-being-without-health-insurance/

"SNIP............


But right-wing, corporate-funded ideologues have fabricated a new negative notion of “freedoms” derived from individual choice. You’re free to be poor, free to be politically powerless or free to be ill and uncared for; it’s all a matter of decisions you freely make in life, and our larger society has no business interfering with your free will.

This is what passes for a philosophical framework behind many of the policies of today’s Republican congressional leaders. For example, they say their plan to eliminate health coverage for millions of Americans and do away with such essential health benefits as maternity care for millions more is just a matter of good old free-market consumerism. As explained by Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Tea Party Republican, “Americans have choices. And so maybe, rather than getting that new iPhone that they just love and they want to go spend hundreds of dollars on that, maybe they should invest in their own health care.”

Lest you think that Chaffetz must simply be an oddball jerk, here’s a similar deep insight from the top House Republican, Speaker Paul Ryan: “Freedom is the ability to buy what you want to fit what you need.” Yes, apparently, you are as free as you can afford to be. As Vice President Mike Pence recently barked at us, Trumpcare’s you’re-on-your-own philosophy is all about “bringing freedom and individual responsibility back to American health care.”

The GOP’s austere view is that getting treatment for your spouse’s cancer should be like buying a new pair of shoes,, a free-market decision by customers who can choose their own price point from high-dollar Neiman Marcus to barging-basement Dollar General. And some go barefoot. But then that’s their choice.

............SNIP"

[dalton99a]

1. Kick.

[andym]

2. The idea of freedom to starve or be sick is central to modern American conservatism

Basically, each individual is free to succeed or fail in the marketplace. If you fail, you are on your own.

[July]

8. You sum it up perfectly.

Conservatives believe in capitalism as they define it (not so much a self-correcting marketplace as a rigged one). The common good or democracy are not even considerations for today's Republican leadership.

[yardwork]

15. A rigged marketplace. That's it, exactly.

Republicans believe that they have the right to cheat and rig the system in order to win. Once they've won, they tell themselves that they deserved to win.

Everybody else is a loser who deserves to lose. That's the Republican world view. They even made up a religion that tells them that God rewards them because they deserve it.

This is just the opposite of what Jesus actually said, but Republicans don't care.

Also, note that Trump is a Republican through and through.

[JCMach1]

3. Classic social Darwinism

[CrispyQ]

4. Americans have the right to the health insurance they can afford.

Some repub asshole said that.

[mwooldri]

5. This kind of freedom isn't civilized.

"No society can legitimately call itself civilized if a sick person is denied medical aid because of lack of means." - Nye Bevan - father of the UK's National Health Service.

[MiddleClass]

6. Don't you know conservatives, comparison shop neurosurgeons, Stint Retailers....

Before every medical procedure religiously.

They get every ambulance to drive them to the emergency room right after comparison-shopping.

Which emergency room gets the best satisfaction/affordability/outcome rating scale.

There's nothing more free than being able to choose their own bankruptcy lawyer,

but like Paul Ryan says, Americans want the freedom to make their own health care choice,

do I die, or go to hospital? That's a tough one

[WinkyDink]

7. They've always been thus. Freedom to live under a bridge, to be poor, etc.

[Deb]

9. May they live in fear of their own dirty diapers

[Demsrule86]

10. We can teach them about freedom. The freedom of not being in office anymore...we need three in the

Senate, they pass a shitty bill I bet we get the Senate and the House.

[flibbitygiblets]

11. It's a safe bet they're not meeting in secret to pass a humane bill that works for everyone

I truly don't understand their logic. Yes, rich people will get awesome tax cuts; which is all they seem to care about, but millions will die, lose coverage, a million healthcare jobs lost etc. They'll be blamed, rightly, and then voted out. Do they actually think there will be no repercussions of passing the deadly bill they're surely crafting?

Are they hoping that it will take a few years for the negative effects to take place, and by then they can blame it on someone else?

Help me out here.

[progree]

12. Just to be clear - the Repub House bill did NOT get rid of penalties for not having insurance

That's a false talking point (aka fucking lie) by RepubliCONs and CONservatives who claim otherwise.

Rather, they have a different form of penalty -- if you have a lapse in health coverage for 63 days or more, then

(a) the next time you get insurance, you will have to pay a 30% higher premium for a year

(b) your conditions will then be categorized as "pre-existing" conditions, resulting in higher premiums (sometimes sky-higher premiums) in states that seek and get the pre-existing condition waiver.

Just taking (a) alone, there are plenty of situations where (a) results in a higher penalty than the ACA (Obamacare) penalties. It's particularly hard on people who try to do the right and prudent thing -- have health insurance -- but have some temporary financial hardship where they simply don't have the money to pay the premium for a few months or couple years.

And it is a stupid way to try to penalize people for not having insurance (or incentivize people to have insurance) -- by penalizing them when they do try to get insurance again.

The severity of (b) is obvious.

[Beartracks]

13. "Freedom is the ability to buy what you want...

... to fit what you need."

I'm pretty sure that's not what the founding fathers had in mind when they fought and died for freedom.

============

[Bernardo de La Paz]

14. No one ever handed me anything on a plate

I apologize for the size of this graphic but it is far and away the clearest illustration of how the privileged use a thousand small advantages to grind down less advantaged people and then claim the poor don't work hard enough and deserve their station in life.

"Richard's parents will do anything for their baby and so will Paula's. That's why they are working two jobs."

[Blue_true]

16. Until the day comes when people that refuse to buy health insurance

are allowed to lay in their homes, on a sidewalk or in their cars if they fall deadly ill or get gravely injured and die, the argument put forth by republicans is bullshit. What will happen is those people, even ones cheering on republicans now will be taken to a hospital and treated and if they can't pay the bill, people that do buy health insurance will help pay for it through higher taxes and higher premium rates. There is no free lunch, either we get single payer where it is clear we pay and get complete coverage, or we keep Obamacare and wisely modify it, or we get the jungle called Trumpcare and die if we become seriously ill.

[The Wizard]

17. There are two kinds of freedom

Freedom from and freedom to. One is not had without giving up some of the other. Like the Yin and Yang, Newton's Laws of Motion, and Einstein's special theory, it's a concept, not pegged to individual things like speech or religion or the press. Republicans are lying thieves that can't be trusted to do the right thing when no one is looking.