Deep in the heart of Georgia there’s a Republican Insurance Commissioner who isn’t afraid to tell people with pre-existing health conditions what he really thinks of them, and his name is Ralph Hudgens. In November, he spoke out against the Affordable Care Act to a group of Republican women and this is what he had to say about those scum-sucking leeches otherwise known as … people with pre-existing medical conditions (and yes, the emphasis below is mine):
I’ve had several companies come in and they have said just the fact — just the fact — that in the individual market pre-existing conditions have to be covered on Jan. 1, that that is going to double the cost of insurance. And if you don’t really understand what covering pre-existing conditions would be like, it would be like in Georgia we have a law that says you have to have insurance on your automobile. You have to have liability insurance. If you’re going to drive on Georgia’s roads, you have to have liability insurance. You don’t have to have collision. You don’t have to have comprehensive. You don’t have to have rental car or towing or anything else. But you have to have liability.
“But say you’re going along and you have a wreck. And it’s your fault. Well, a pre-existing condition would be you then calling up your insurance agent and saying, ‘I would like to get collision insurance coverage on my car.’ And your insurance agent says, ‘Well, you never had that before. Why would you want it now?’ And you say, ‘Well, I just had a wreck, it was my fault and I want the insurance company to pay to repair my car.’ And that’s the exact same thing on pre-existing insurance.”
Yes, it’s your fault if you get cancer, schizophrenia, ADHD, Multiple Schlerosis, Parkinson’s Disease, epilepsy, diabetes, or any of a gazillion other chronic disorders or life threatening illnesses. You (and by you I mean myself and practically everyone I know) deserve no medical treatment unless you can pay for it all on your own dime. Period. Doesn’t matter how great a person you are, or what other contributions you make to society, if you have a “pre-existing” health condition you should just suffer with it. Or better yet die. Because it ain’t right that all Americans should have universal healthcare. It’s goddam socialism, and anyone who gets a policy that covers pre-existing conditions is a low-life, government welfare queen out to destroy our most precious American values (especially those values that Republicans and Insurance Companies hold most dear – the value of their stock holdings).
Snark aside, it is hard to be shocked or surprised by anything a Republican elected official will say these days, but I confess that I was surprised by Mr. Ralph Hudgens’ statements against covering people with pre-existing health problems under the ACA. Even many of his fellow Republican officials in Congress claim they want to keep coverage for pre-existing conditions in future health insurance policies, even as they vote multiple times to repeal the ACA. I suppose I should thank Commissioner Hudgens for his honesty. At least he isn’t lying about his complete lack of human decency or his cold, black heart. More than you can say for the rest of those lying, deceitful hypocrites.
So how is this guy different from Paul Broun or the usual Georgia GOPer suspects?
It’s a story when the honest Republican actually tells the truth–you know, a man bites dog kind of story. This…just another rabid dog bites man story.
But it is another argument about why risk pooling cannot be done through the private sector if you are wanting everyone covered.
The closest health care situation to his example is trying to get a maternity rider after pregnancy has begun.
Yep. The fact that I was diagnosed with end stage renal disease and given a year or two to live when I was 31 was my own moral failing. And unlike guvmint, private insurance knew just what to do: they tried to kill me. Literally. By delaying medical procedures as long as they could in the hope that I’d die first, because that would have been a cheaper outcome for them.
They nearly succeeded then (I was in a coma three times in 1993 alone), and they’ve been trying their damnedest since for the same reasons. Funny how mass murderers can walk into so many elected officials’ offices and get a sympathetic hearing, but their victims can’t (they’re dead), and neither can their attempted victims like me. After all, I survived them, and that’s a moral failing, too.
ObamaCare is often described as a “compromise” to advocates of single payer, but for me single payer would itself be a compromise, since the trials and executions of a lot of people for massive crimes against humanity likely wouldn’t be part of the deal. Health insurers, Big Pharma, fossil fuel companies, tobacco companies, weapons and arms manufacturers…we sure seem to have an awful lot of our economy whose profit models are predicated on the destruction of lives. And that’s not even counting the banks.
I don’t know why people insist on calling Republicans who tell the truth about what they believe politically “truthful”. It’s like saying that Hannibal Lector is not a pedophile. Who gives a fuck?
Well, in my defense I was being sarcastic.
understood.
My comment was more directed to people who routinely apologize for assholes:
“well, Hitler DID like dogs”
“Lester Maddox was a better governor for blacks than the 2 previous or the 3 subsequent…”
and my personal favorite: “At least Kissinger knew there was a real world out there…”
I think you are taking this wrong. The example is true. It is the same. No moral fault is involved. If I don’t have collision coverage and some coked up drunk plows into my parked car demolishing it, that is no fault of mine but I still can’t call up and buy insurance that covers repairs from collisions that have already occurred. If you don’t like the car example hoe about the hail damage on my house last year? I couldn’t call up after the hailstorm and buy insurance that covers the past event.
The problem is the insurance paradigm. You insure against perils that might occur but have not and might not. You are guaranteed to get sick sometime and the only people who don’t get mortally sick are those that die from trauma before they can get mortally sick.
Let me say it loudly. HEALTHCARE IS NOT INSURANCE. IT SHOULD NOT BE HANDLED BY PRIVATE COMMERCIAL INSURANCE COMPANIES. That’s why we get tangled up in insurance analogies. It is a FALSE PARADIGM. Healthcare is a right conferred on us by societal membership. It is not an optional purchase that we have to pay for.
The ONLY reason that we are having insurance reform instead of health care reform is because the Heritage Foundation wanted a way for CEO’s and investors to get their pound of flesh from the fears and suffering of others. They bring NOTHING to health care. Doctors, nurses, hospitals, even pharmaceutical companies do something positive for health care. Insurance companies do nothing except extract money as vigorish. Their proper milieu is insuring against potential perils that may or may not occur by spreading risk. EVERYONE is at risk of fatal disease or disability.
Yes, but isn’t that just why you’re MANDATED to have car insurance if you drive a car?
So his example is hypothetical and a poor analogy. It’s illegal to drive an uninsured vehicle. And by the way he did say: “and it’s your fault”.
I take your point, but here’s another way to look at it. The opponents of ACA argue that nobody’s forcing you to drive a car. So it’s voluntary, and buying insurance is part of that choice.
Aside from the fact that public transportation is so bad in most parts of the country that you virtually have to have a car if you hope to hold a job, so it’s not really so voluntary — aside from that, well, it’s true we aren’t born owning a car, but what, do we voluntarily choose whether or not to have a body? We don’t — having a body is the real “preexisting condition” for life. And if you have a body, you’re going to need medical care in your life one way or another.
So it’s reasonable that all people be covered. I agree that it’s also a right, but that right is just what is being upheld through the ACA. In this country that is at present the only feasible way to do it, and with all its faults you see how hard the enemies are trying to destroy it. Once it’s fully up and running it will be improved.
No, the ACA is about the right of insurance companies to have customers. That’s what people object to, left and right. It’s not the same as a mandate to buy car insurance. You don’t have to own a car. Anyone who lives is mandated to buy insurance. One is not even mandated to buy food. You can always drop in on your family members or friends at meal times. Most people don’t object to the mandate to pre-pay for Medicare. Many more would object to a mandate to pre-pay for a Medicare supplement. We acknowledge the right of government to collect taxes but not the right to mandate purchases. In Illinois at least, one can post a very large bond in lieu of auto insurance, in essence being self-insured. But this all proves my point that we get all messed up when we follow the insurance paradigm. Should we purchase police insurance and if we don’t they won’t answer calls?
“You don’t have to own a car. Anyone who lives is mandated to buy insurance.”
I don’t mind if you disagree with me, I do mind if you completely ignore what I wrote.
How am I completely ignoring what you wrote? I do agree with the rest, so I only argued about that part.
I wrote:
“Aside from the fact that public transportation is so bad in most parts of the country that you virtually have to have a car if you hope to hold a job, so it’s not really so voluntary — aside from that, well, it’s true we aren’t born owning a car, but what, do we voluntarily choose whether or not to have a body? We don’t — having a body is the real “preexisting condition” for life. And if you have a body, you’re going to need medical care in your life one way or another.
So it’s reasonable that all people be covered.”
You wrote:
“”You don’t have to own a car. Anyone who lives is mandated to buy insurance.”
I showed why the analogy is false. Your reply was to repeat the analogy.
BtW, just to clarify. I do not think the system with the private insurers is the best possible system. Far from it. But it’s what was possible (barely) and it does work (sort of). Way better than nothing, which is what the Republicans want.
And yes it IS your fault if you decide to risk a dread disease just to avoid buying insurance that you could afford. Just as it is your fault if you drive without insurance and run off the road. No one is born with a driver’s license so the analogy breaks down when talking about birth defects. If you are aware of a risk, are of legal age and competent, and you fail to mitigate a risk, you suffer the consequences. That’s basic law.
I get your point, but you’re missing the core of what makes Hudgens’ comment so vile. Replay this line:
“But say you’re going along and you have a wreck. And it’s your fault.”
Built into his analogy is the assertion that when anyone gets cancer, or Parkinson’s, or is born with spina bifida – it’s their fault. Not just their fault that they’re uninsured. Their fault that they are sick.
Also skipped in his analogy, of course, is the fact that if you have a group policy, and you get sick, and you lose your job, even though you had taken care to have coverage before, you are now thrown onto the individual market with a pre-existing condition. Or even if you’ve been paying through the nose for an individual policy, and you get sick, pre-Obamacare, your insurer is free to refuse to renew, and you are in the pre-existing soup again.
So in many cases, the analogy is making the false assertion that you chose not to be insured – when the choice was forced on you by the insurance industry.
But at bottom, the man is saying a child born with a congenital ailment deserves whatever she gets, because she chose in the womb not to buy insurance. That’s not analogizing. That’s sociopathy.
I was responding to the high-lighted words
This comment by The Voice in the Wilderness is basically right, in my view. The use of the insurance paradigm is why the ACA is long-term unstable. Unstable because while the end is admirable, the means is noticeably perverse. I say ‘perverse’ because the cost of insurance for unhealthy people is ultimately to be subsidized by an increase in the cost of insurance for healthy people. You can’t say it’s unjust for people with preexisting conditions to be penalized and not also admit the injustice of penalizing the young and healthy. Long term, people are going to notice this.
However, what’s worse is that health insurance has always been priced (underwritten) based on morbidity statistics. When you substitute something other than morbidity statistics to price health insurance you multiply the uncertainty faced by the insurer. This uncertainty carries a price tag. To protect themselves from this uncertainty, insurers raise prices. The more uncertainty, the more it costs to hedge it. There is nothing more uncertain and unpredictable than the outcome of political processes, and all of a sudden the terms and coverages and underwriting guidelines for health policies are subject to political processes. In this environment, even if nothing else changed, the cost of health insurance is going to have to go up. This is how insurance companies operate. Since this law is so good for them, I’d bet they have agreed to absorb most of these additional costs in the early years of the implementation, but long-term, these costs will be passed on to the policyholder. They always are.
Who really knows what the future will bring, though? Will the law be whittled away over time, or expanded and improved? One thing is for sure, in my opinion at least, whatever happens won’t be bad for the insurance companies.
Exactly!
The Declaration of Independence states that people have a fundamental, inalienable right to life. To me, this should imply a right to a minimal set of necessities required for life; among these necessities is health care. It should be unconstitutional for any hospital or insurer to deny a citizen care that would result in him or her losing their right to life, as nearly happened to Geoff (see above) and many others.
This, I think, is the best argument for universal healthcare. It’s a constitutional right.
While I agree with the substance of what you say, for reference, The Declaration isn’t the Constitution, nor does it have any legal bearing regarding rights in the Constitution.
Yes, I’m proposing an extension of the bill of rights. A right to life seems pretty fundamental to me, implicit in other directly enumerated constitutional rights, possibly covered by the 9th amendment as a “right retained by the people”.
Don’t let the military industrial complex hear you say that!
Not that I really want to defend this creep, but I expect the response one would make to the above argument is that he’s not saying it’s your fault for getting sick, rather it’s your fault for not getting medical insurance back when you were healthy, before you knew you’d need it.
That’s a dumb argument anyway. Plenty of responsible end up uninsured, either because their insurance company found a way to drop them when it turned out they had an expensive illness, or they faced a financial crises, or had a pre-existing condition from an early age. And besides that, I don’t particularly want to live in a society with an attitude that if you’re too irresponsible to get insurance like you should and then get sick, you should just die.
And this guy is the state’s Insurance Commissioner. Good grief. I had hoped that at least part of the Insurance Commissioner’s job involved protecting Georgia’s citizens from insurance companies, instead of simply looking out for insurance companies’s bottom line.
In Illinois at least, one can post a very large bond in lieu of auto insurance, in essence being self-insured. But this all proves my point that we get all messed up when we follow the insurance paradigm. Mua iphone | Mua ipad | dien thoai sony Xperia