Roy Blunt cares about you

Ever since health care passed and most Republicans got past the grieving stage and the panicked looks to the sky expecting it to fall, they moved right to forcefully declaring that they were going to repeal this bill. I know, I know, how are they going to get a bill repealing "Obamacare" past the Presidential veto of Obamam? It's best not to break that reality to them.

But then the question was raised "So they think that running on allowing insurance companies to again be able to deny people for pre-existing conditions and rate jack people is a good campaign strategy?" When that part of the strategy was pointed out to many GOP members, their reaction was a muttered "Right... fuck" before they scrambled to say that not all parts of the bill were bad and they were just going to repeal the parts that sent the postman round to shiv your grandma in the spleen and gave Barry total control over your health.

But even the minor concession that some parts of the bill were good was too much for some people. Like Roy Blunt of Missourah.

Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO)--who's running to replace retiring Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) in this year's midterm elections--has a position on health care reform that may prove unpopular, even with conservative voters. Blunt says adults with pre-existing conditions should not be prevented from suffering discrimination at the hands of insurance companies.

"Access for kids who have pre-existing conditions, who would be against that?" Blunt asked a group of health care professionals in Springfield, MO. "But access for adults who've done nothing to take care of themselves, who actually will have as I just described every incentive not to get insurance until the day that you know that you're going to have medical expenses--that's a very different kind of story."

That's a hell of a campaign strategy: Vote for me and I'll make sure it's easier to deny you health care coverage. Maybe I'm judging that wrong. Maybe people with congenital heart defects, someone with cancer, someone who has suffered an on the job accident, someone who has just been the victim of domestic violence, turned 18, or someone who had a documented case of the sniffles once, aren't very sympathetic figures. Maybe the natural reaction to those kinds of people who have fallen ill is "Screw them! They should have known better than to get a genetically pre-disposed condition or an illness they could have done little to prevent." I've often thought that Lou Gehrig got what he deserved for not taking care of himself.

So congratulations to Rep. Blunt for setting a lower bar in our health care debate. Obviously some people deserve to die or be bankrupted by illness. We call those people "Whoever the insurance companies say they are". Good luck with that strategy, it's the kind of people first populism that's sure to rally voters around you.