The statements from many Republicans these days about health care are unnerving. Governor Pawlenty says that maybe hospitals should be able to turn away indigent people who need treatment. Earlier, he vetoes a reasonable GAMC extension, and Republicans in the House vow to uphold his veto despite overwhelmingly voting for the extension in the first place. At the Health Care Summit in DC, Republicans don’t seem to care about people who can’t afford health insurance; it’s “their problem“. When Representative Louise Slaughter told a story about a woman being forced to use her dead sister’s ill-fitting dentures because she couldn’t afford dentures on her own, Republicans mocked the story. Rush Limbaugh, scum that he is, says that Democrats should be thrilled with that, because Democrats love recycling, after all. He also tells a person who broke their wrist and can’t pay $6,000 to fix it, “Well, you shouldn’t have broken your wrist“.
Let’s face it: in America, the norm is not a collective, “we’re all in this together” sense of community. It’s the rugged individualism of myth. Most people have no problem with seeing others go without: be it jobs, education, shelter, or even food, the sense of a lot of people is that anybody here can just “pull themselves up by their bootstraps” and acquire all of these things if they really tried, and if they don’t, it’s a problem of character. There are no widespread pushes to build public housing for all the homeless, and even a couple hundred dollars a month in food stamp benefits is seen by many as welfare that just leads to dependency. It’s our culture. Given the mythos that is drummed into us from an early age, these beliefs are at least somewhat understandable.
But when it comes to health care, it’s a bit different, and as a society we have seen fit to draw a line. Make no mistake: there are plenty of people in this country that die from homelessness or lack of food, and by and large, it is accepted, or at least not talked about seriously. But when it comes to health care, where the threat of death is immediate and in your face, at least most Americans don’t think that the poor and the uninsured should be left to figure things out for themselves. That’s why hospitals have to provide care, regardless of ability to pay. The fact that we mandate this without having a sane way to pay for it is troubling, but at least we say “no” to literally letting people die on the sidewalk outside of emergency rooms because they can’t pay for treatment.
The comments from some Republicans these days, however, show that even this level of human decency may be a bridge too far for them. It boggles the mind that they can have such a low level of empathy. Perhaps the reason is that a lot of them have always had heath care and insurance, and literally can’t think of what it would be like to go without. However, it has to go beyond that: I’ve been lucky (and I do ascribe some of it to luck, not just my “hard work”) to have never gone a long period without insurance in my life. But I know plenty of people who have not been as lucky, and I can put myself in their shoes. That’s what empathy means. Perhaps there are other, more sinister reasons. Our journalists, however, have not seen fit to ask them why they believe these things.
I’m an atheist, but I do know the meaning of the phrase “There but for the grace of god go I.” A lot of so-called Christian Republicans seem to have forgotten the meaning of that phrase entirely. When people can be so callous to the plight of the health of the truly poor and destitute in this country, when they can tell them to just figure it out on their own, it is troubling for the very fabric of our society. The thinking behind these statements moves away from a lack of empathy to a place that is even more dark. The question is, can it be stopped?