At a recent town hall meeting, a 27-year old uninsured waitress named Elizabeth Smith asked Rep. Lynn Jenkins (R-KS) why as a working mother she can’t “get an affordable option” for health care. According to the AP, Smith’s 2-1/2-year-old son “hasn’t been to a doctor in 21 months, except for emergency room visits for ear infections, because she can’t afford either insurance or a doctor’s visit.” When Smith asked her question, Jenkins criticized creating “a government-run program” and said that she advocated tax credits so people like Smith could “go be a grown-up and go buy the insurance”
Un-fucking-believavble.
But we'll leave the commentary to Xmastime:
If a Democratic congressman had smarmily told a 27 year-old waitress to "go be a grown-up," "Joe-anne the Waitress" would already be on coffee mugs throughout the land and will have been breathlessly interviewed on every talk show on Fox News by now; Sean Hannity et al OUTRAGED WITH INDIGNATION!! at how out of touch some elitist, condescending intellectual could possibly be about all those hard-working moms in "real America."
Exactly.
But here's what no one is asking the politicians and protesters who oppose reasonable health care reform:
Why do you want the insurance companies to continue deciding whether your pre-existing condition precludes you from receiving appropriate care?
Are you comfortable having the insurance companies making a health-related, and perhaps life-threatening judgement, based on how it affects their profit margin?
What's your advice to those more than 40 million Americans who cannot afford health insurance? Cross your fingers and hope for the best?
I guess Congresswoman Jenkins already answered that last one.
By the way, this is the same woman who a few weeks ago suggested the GOP needed a "great white hope" to defeat Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential elections, only to later state she was not aware of the racial connotations of the phrase. Ignorant or a lying racist? Either way...
