QOTD: David Dreier
by digby
And he’s supposed to be one of the reasonable ones:
Rep. David Dreier (R-Calif.) said on Monday evening that he didn’t believe highly expensive health care should be provided to uninsured patients with pre-existing conditions…
“While I don’t think that someone who is diagnosed with a massive tumor should the next day be able to have millions and millions and millions of dollars of health care provided, I do believe there can be a structure to deal with the issue of pre-existing conditions,” Dreier said.
What do you suppose he thinks should happen to this person? Does he think there should be some sort of ….death panel that decides whether he lives or dies? Or should we just assume that anyone with a deadly illness who doesn’t have enough insurance to pay for “millions and millions and millions” of dollars of health care should just be euthanized on the spot? Or perhaps they should be made to suffer. After all they failed to get rich enough or lucky enough to have adequate funds to pay for their needs so maybe it would be best to use some of these sickly parasites as cautionary tales.
I think we may actually be coming to the point of debating whether or not to repeal the Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act. And it will fail, of course. At first. The country isn’t there yet. But it will represent one more step in the disintigration of America’s moral fabric (which wasn’t that strong to begin with.) Like torture, it’s in the political ether now, no longer completely taboo. This is how this sort of thing is mainstreamed.
Oh, and don’t expect all the followers of Jesus to come to the rescue. It’s true that he would be appalled, but conservative Christians don’t seem to care much about what he said anymore. (Not that Dreier is one of them…)
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