Last Thursday, Mick Mulvaney, Trump's OMB director said Trumpcare has enough money to cover people with preexisting conditions, but with a horrifying caveat, "That doesn't mean we should take care of the person who sits at home, eats poorly and gets diabetes. Is that the same thing as Jimmy Kimmel's kid? I don't think that it is."
The Washington Examiner quoted him as saying, "I do think it should meet that test," Mulvaney said. "We have plenty of money to deal with that. We have plenty of money to provide that safety net so that if you get cancer you don't end up broke … that is not the question. The question is, who is responsible for your ordinary healthcare? You or somebody else?"
That's when he made his callous response that many Republicans, led by the Freedom Caucus Dumbos have now been saying since Trump took office. Blaming the individual for contracting a disease because they are some kind of lowlife.
Rep. Mo Brooks echoed the same sentiments while discussing preexisting conditions on May 1st, when he told Jake Tapper that he blamed sick people for not living the right way for jacking up the costs for everyone else.
When she was a child my mother Josephine contracted Scarlet fever when she was five years old after finishing second in a Shirley Temple contest in NY state a year earlier and it was touch and go. Back in the thirties it was considered a serious illness.
A little later in life she was struck with Hashimoto's Disease, a rare case in NYC in the fifties. Soon after she was diagnosed with diabetes and had to take two shots of insulin a day from the 60's until she passed away in 2004.
Here's a HS graduation picture. She was a beautiful young woman who was married at twenty years old, raised two kids, cooked, cleaned and worked part-time jobs until she wasn't physically able to, so I resent Mulvaney's words profoundly.
Her parents immigrated to Ellis Island from Sicily and had a rough time like everybody else. Through a series of events and unfortunate circumstances she suffered, but never complained about her condition. In the 80's the diabetes attacked her eyes.
The idea that only irresponsible people get major illnesses is despicable and must be rebuked at every turn.
The conservative response to our healthcare system is reprehensible.
When I heard about Mulvaney's words it reminded me of this scene from Hulu's great 'A Handmaid's Tale.'
In the above video, The Commander is explaining what happened to his Offred, his Handmaid's gay friend, (now considered a gender traitor) and how life works under their leadership.
He said that they helped her and let a "doctor take care of the problem."
As she turns to leave he says, "We only wanted to make the world better."
She stops, turns and mockingly says, "Better?"
The Commander callously replied, "Better never means better for everyone. It always means worse, for some."
The "better" means only for the elites.
This best describes how Republicans feel about our healthcare system, what they are trying to implement and how they really want it to work in America.
Worse for most, better for the rich.
