Oh please. Both parties are in the insurance industry's pockets but show me where the republicans are as concerned over what's actually happening to patients as they are about the threat to industry profits.

Both parties are in the insurance industry's pockets

Keep telling yourself that. Maybe some day you'll even convince yourself.

This has nothing to do with insurance companies profits, and everything to do with personal freedom. Why do libs constantly want the government meddling in my business?

"But then, why wait until at the edge of death's door to seek care at Ohio's public hospitals? That's simply irresponsible. People should seek care for themselves, even if uninsured."

Isn't it ironic that the point of Donald Douglas's posting here is supposedly to show how the "radical left" is exploiting Ms. Young's death as part of a display of "despicable political opportunism" and yet Douglas then goes on to blame Ms. Young herself, basically insinuating that it was her own ignorance and stupidity that caused her death? If Mr. Douglas wants to talk about "despicable political opportunism" regarding the tragedy of a young woman's death, not to mention a gross disrespect for the deceased, he need look no further than his own posting.

Posted by huckupchuck1

2009-09-28 05:45:24

Yeah huck because you no bringing out the details to counter the lefts use of the poor girls errors, is so terribel. THe left is trying to use this event as means to drive more govt control of health care. Mr. Douglas, is just providing FACTS to counter the lefts BS. Yeah that's political opportunism, NOT!

and yet Douglas then goes on to blame Ms. Young herself, basically insinuating that it was her own ignorance and stupidity that caused her death?

Huck, what you're claiming with this statement is that an individual is NOT responsible for his own health care.

How incredibly lazy are you? No amount of health care in the world will help if an individual doesn't take the initiative to get the appropriate help.

I'm very sorry to hear about the loss of this young woman. However, call it what you wish but individuals are responsible for their own health.

Simple fact: a few hours in the ER getting IV fluids and observation…what a hospital is going to do for a severe case of flu…is going to cost a few hundred bucks. Unless you have a really good insurance policy (like the kind Obama wants to tax out of existence), you're going to be paying that out of pocket in deductibles and copays anyways.

Her out of pocket cost would have likely been the same if she had public option insurance, and if she was that concerned about money she would have avoided going to the hospital to avoid paying the deductible.

But I suppose everybody on Medicare and Medicaid is immortal, right? They never die? They never delay treatment or worry about the cost? The big evil insurance companies delight in killing their customers, but if the government takes care of you you're invincible, right?

In related news, public support for Obamacare has reached a new low.

If Donald Douglas's point was that the Democrats are exploiting this girl's unfortunate death to make a political point regarding what they think contributed to her death, he could have said this and left it at that. But, instead, he felt it necessary himself to offer his own political point about what he thinks contributed to her death — namely her own stupidity and ignorance. So, if we take playing the blame game out of what is essentially a polemical and ideological discussion regarding the cause of this young girl's death, which is what I thought Donald Douglas wanted, then there should be nothing but expressing condolences and sadness at this tragic loss of life. But Donald Douglas jumps right into the blame game fray with those Democrats. And what's worse is that he NOT ONLY uses this young girl's death to make his own political point, BUT ALSO cynically implies that this girl, by her own stupidity and ignorance, is solely responsible for her own death. The "political opportunism" test is the following: would Donald Douglas stand up in front of this young girl's family and friends at her funeral and say what he said in this post? If not, then he's using this girl's death in a politicaly opportunistic way just as much as those liberal Democrats he complains about are.

What huck is doing is to politicize an event for his own selfish purposes. Despite the fact that Douglas' first reaction is to offer condolences, huck decided that it is more important to attack the messenger because he knows that Douglas has a valid point.

Douglas isn't going into a "blame game" as huck falsely states, but correctly states that the girl is ultimately responsible. Everybody is responsible for his own health.

What's ironic is that huck is accusing Douglas of being insensitive but huck is the one who has not offered condolences of any kind, unlike Douglas.

Fact is, I'm not ascribing blame for this young girl's death at all. That's the whole point.

But the left is: thus the article originally written about. You…. do agree that they did so, right? Or are you so busy attacking the writer here that you didn't notice?

C_T – Oh, I agree that some on the left are using this girl's death as an opportunity to score some political points and to push a particular agenda about what causes this girl's death. So is Donald Douglas. Face it, Douglas is not content to simply point out how craven the Democrats are in using this girl's death to push a larger statement about why this girl died. No, he wants to do the same. He uses this girl's death to push his own opinion about the cause of the girl's death. That, to me, is just as politically opportunistic. Next thing you know, Donald Douglas will be writing about how some young person's murder at the hands of a gunman is the fault of this young person's not taking advantage of her right to purchase and carry a concealed weapon. Or perhaps he might argue that this young person is at fault for her death because she should have known better than to leave a nightclub at 1:30AM after listening to a Brass Band concert to ride home on her bicycle; and she should have studied a map of the route home more carefully so that she wouldn't have gotten lost on the way home in the rough neighborhood where she was murdered. See, it's all this young person's fault because of her ignorance and stupidity. (This tragic murder actually happened in New Orleans.)

Douglas is pushing the same kind of ideological agenda of personal responsibility as the fault of a young girl's death. Regardless of whether or not some liberal Democrats are exploiting this person's death in a similar fashion to score some kind of political points regarding the health care system is irrelevant to Douglas's politically opportunistic use of this girl's death to push his own agenda. He's no better than they are. In fact, he's worse because he pretends that there's something wrong with exploiting a person's death in this politically opportunistic way, all the while he does exactly the same thing. As I said before, and which I'll say again, Douglas should consider whether he would stand before this girl's family and friends at her funeral and pontificate about why she died. If he wouldn't do that, I'd ask why not? And the answer, I'd suspect, is because he would consider it inappropriate and disrespectful of the deceased to push his agenda in this way.

Douglas should have just taken the liberal Democrats to task and expressed his condolences and left it at that. But he didn't. He used this girl's death not only to chastise the Democrats, but also as an opportunity to make his own point about why she died in the context of the health care reform debate and some commentary on individual failing and personal responsibility. Read the second half of his post again and you'll see that he's no longer criticizing the left for its response to this girl's death, but he's actually using this girl's death to score his own kind of political points and to push his own agenda. Perhaps you agree with him. But that has no bearing on the fact — the fact — that Douglas is as politically opportunistic regarding this girl's death as any of those liberal democrats might be that he criticizes.