RomneyCare: Let the Poor Die As Soon As Possible

PELLEY: Does the government have a responsibility to provide health care to the 50 million Americans who don’t have it today?
ROMNEY: Well, we do provide care for people who don’t have insurance, people — we — if someone has a heart attack, they don’t sit in their apartment and — and die. We — we pick them up in an ambulance, and take them to the hospital, and give them care. And different states have different ways of providing for that care.

Having been out of the country and busy, somehow I missed this instance of verbal stupidity from Mitt Romney.

Sorry, Mitt, people certainly do sit in their houses and die of heart attacks because they don’t have health insurance. They die because they weren’t able to get care for a heart condition BEFORE they had the heart attack.

Though Mitt certainly must have suffered when he sold stock to get through college, he most certainly has never had to worry about health care. In fact, most politicians haven’t either. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that humans have a really, really hard time understanding the lives of other humans.

Nowhere is this more true than health insurance and access to care. People with health insurance really can’t imagine the lives of those who don’t. I remember those days well, having NEVER had insurance until I reached the ripe age of 38.

Every day is a risk. Even simple things like bike riding are filled with risk, not only for health, but financial security. A simple broken bone could leave a person financially broken, unemployed, and even homeless. It’s no mistake that people without health insurance are also likely to have zero savings.

But, in the world of the American right, people don’t have health insurance because they’re lazy. They’re too stupid to get a job that will provide it. They losers that weren’t born to wealthy auto magnates. Let ’em die.

Honestly, the abysmal access to health care is the US is the number one reason I consider taking a job in any number of more civilized countries and leaving this insanity behind. Not to overstate my worth, but the US can’t really afford to lose people like me. Though anecdotal, uncertain social welfare policies are driving qualified people out of the US. Who wouldn’t move to a good job in Canada, Sweden, Japan or Switzerland?

Right wingers would call this entitlement. I call it survival.