Nothing… shit happens and this kid is now a pre-exisiting condition that will get underwritten out of any pool for the rest of his life.
What did Billy do wrong
by David Anderson| 124 Comments
This post is in: Anderson On Health Insurance, Election 2018, Organizing & Resistance, I wish a motherfucker would!
Baud
He led an immoral life, David. You can’t argue with the facts.
Lee
The video is restricted from playing.
JPL
The Washington Post has the story about Jimmy Kimmel’s son Billy, along with the full video. Before the health care vote, every republican, should be forced to watch it.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2017/05/02/an-emotional-jimmy-kimmel-discusses-newborn-sons-heart-disease-makes-passionate-health-care-plea/?tid=sm_tw&utm_term=.83a7ac7e8c40
JPL
@Lee: I just watched the video at the Washington Post. A hankie is necessary, btw
Ryan
He did choose to ultimately be born to someone who has achieved a great deal of fame and financial success. Give him credit here!
Elizabelle
NY Mag quickly grafted Kimmel’s remarks into their roundup article on healthcare, it seems. It’s got a working link to the segment. And covers Mo Brooks’ (Moron – Alabama) remarks too.
Jimmy Kimmel Might Have Struck the Final Blow Against the GOP Health Care Plan
JPL
@Elizabelle: I hope so. Before David fixed the video, I had already heard about his appeal, on local and national news, so I knew who Billy was.
Logan Brown
What Billy did wrong is he stopped being a fetus. Until then, the Radical Religious groups feel that he has as many if not more rights to live than his mother. Once he comes out of the womb, they collectively Atlas Shrug and offer tepid statements of prayers on Facebook but won’t lift a finger otherwise because the market said “boo”.
Snarki, child of Loki
But please, spare a thought for all those RWNJ GOPers that were born without a brain, or had it atrophy to an unused blob of rancid festering goo.
different-church-lady
@Ryan: Except he wasn’t actually involved in the decision.
Jeffro
@Logan Brown:
Here, let me just quote and highlight the awesome part of this
“They collectively Atlas Shrug”…SO saving that one, LB!
different-church-lady
@Elizabelle:
Consider that the current zeigeist can be most succinctly summed up as “Fuck you, weaklings,” and then calculate the odds.
Ryan
@different-church-lady: Exactly my point; millions of others are not so lucky.
From NyMag, here is Mo Brooks.
“It will allow insurance companies to require people who have higher health care costs to contribute more to the insurance pool that helps offset all these costs, thereby reducing the cost to those people who lead good lives, they’re healthy, they’ve done the things to keep their bodies healthy,” explained Brooks, “And right now, those are the people who have done things the right way that are seeing their costs skyrocketing.”
Nora
Thinking of the line from It’s a Wonderful Life, where Potter says, “They aren’t my children,” and George’s father replies, “But they’re somebody’s children, Mr. Potter.” It didn’t work with Potter, who’s the role model for a lot of these Republicans, so I’m not sure it’s going to work here, but there’s always hope.
Elizabelle
@Ryan: Young William Kimmel just put the lie to that statement from Mo Brooks’ black, black, black heart and purported mind.
Good on NY Mag for using Kimmel and Brooks as bookends to this week’s healthcare discussion.
Also, I wonder how many in Kimmel’s audience will hit the phones today. Go, audience!
ThresherK
@Nora:
Remember Boomer Esiason, Jim Kelly and Doug Flutie each having a very young son with a chronic, major illness at the same time? (Cystic fibrosis, globoid-cell leukodystrophy, and autism.)
Three famous NFL quarterbacks, with fame and honors aplenty and the money and time to dedicate to family health.
It can happen to anyone.
cmorenc
Little Billy’s parents should set out mason jars with slots in the top (with Billy’s picture) in convenience stores, and collect the necessary money for his surgeries through voluntary donations from concerned people in his community, instead of using taxpayer funds that are draining the pockets of the entrepreneurial job creators who sure could use them some tax cuts, or else they’ll simply quit and then where are we? Huh?.
Patricia Kayden
@JPL: Do you really think that Republicans don’t already know how much the AHCA will harm millions of Americans? They know. They just don’t care. Watching videos isn’t going to make them any more compassionate.
Cold blooded bastards who claim to be Christians. Sigh.
Anonymous At Work
That he felt the need to appeal to both sides of the aisle tells me that Kimmel doesn’t know what’s going on or, most likely, doesn’t want to offend anyone. Because one side of the aisle was always 100% behind you and the other was against you, Jimmy.
Patricia Kayden
@Logan Brown: Yep. Love the fetus. Despise the poor child.
Elizabelle
@Ryan: The last line of Jonathan Chait’s article about Deplorable Mo Brooks’ take on healthcare.
Republican Blurts Out That Sick People Don’t Deserve Affordable Care
This core belief is toxic. It has to die. Drag it into the light, and burn it.
Elizabelle
@Patricia Kayden: Yep.
But they care if their constituents suddenly get a look under the mask and say, “hey, wait a minute.”
Parallax
It’s too bad about Kimmel’s son and all but there are tax cuts to be made and the money has to come from somewhere. Priorities people!
ArchTeryx
@Elizabelle: Basically, they are would-be mass murderers. That core belief echos Stalin, Pol Pot, and the Khmer Rouge: It’s nothing more then purges by another name. Improve society by mass murder and death.
We thought we were better then that, but hopefully the collective “we” are learning that we are not and never have been.
Mary G
I still say Jimmy killed Trumpcare. We’ll find out this week or at least this month, right David? They can’t just keep going on and on with all the uncertainty. Hospitals and insurance companies need to know what the rules will be. I am so hoping to hear Paul Ryan say “Obamacare is the law of the land” again.
Olivia
The devout “Christians” that I know would say that his parents are being punished for something, or who cares anyway. because His dad is a Hollywood liberal with money and can pay for his health care, just like Trump pays his own way and doesn’t need government help. Besides the kid is already born so their job is done.
Most of these people, just like most of Americans, have had insurance from employers for their whole working life and all they see is rising premiums so they focus on the rising premiums and blame Obamacare when actually their premiums have been rising by large percentages every year. They have no clue how much health care really costs because they have never seen the bill.
FlipYrWhig
Every Republican politician and most Republican voters are wretched, sour, shriveled-hearted assholes.
Elizabelle
Top story trending at Fuck the Fucking New York Times:
Jimmy Kimmel’s Emotional Monologue: His New Son’s Heart Condition
In their best of late night roundup.
They link to the full 13:06 monologue.
Elizabelle
@Mary G: Oh, I hope so. But we can still make some more calls today!
Catch you guys later.
FlipYrWhig
@Olivia: Because they have been led to believe that what Obamacare did was jack up what they paid so that black and brown people and hipsters and sluts wouldn’t have to pay at all. This is how they think it works, and I’m pretty sure at least 85% of the dumbfucks they elect to represent them think it works that way too.
geg6
@Olivia:
Funny thing about those “rising premiums.” We got an email the other day from the university HR department letting us know that our premiums and co-pays will be lower next year. Nothing else is going to change (types of coverage, prescription coverage, etc.) except the premiums and co-pays costing less. I wonder how many other large employers are seeing this and I wonder if or how Obamacare may have effected this change. I am going to have to count on David to explain that to me.
JPL
@Patricia Kayden: Sad but true. Billy needs to pull himself up by his booties.
JPL
@geg6: That’s the unreported story. For those getting their insurance from employers, the cost has not risen, compared to previous years.
Wapiti
@Elizabelle:
I thought this was a wonderful phrase.
laura
Good on ya Jimmy Kimmel, you done good.
This one will leave a mark and it will be interesting to watch for the Party of Tax Cuts for the Rich spin this, deny this, run from this.
I’m going to guess that the phrase Hollywood Elite gets a good working out, and that Mo Brooks won’t be taking calls from reporters or constituents.
Trump will likely say a stupid conflating beautiful babies and beautiful coverage for pee-existing is in his plan.
Chris
@Nora:
Whatever its shortcomings, I still love that movie. Largely because of lines like that one.
@ArchTeryx:
Yep.
Movement conservatives love to claim that liberals are just like communists because they both believe in public education, they both believe in public health insurance, they both believe in public post offices – the resemblances are uncanny!
Ultimately, though, what conservatives share with communists that liberals don’t is that they’re both political fundamentalists who would rather sacrifice a few people to preserve their ideology than sacrifice some of their ideology to preserve people’s lives.
bystander
@Anonymous At Work: Kimmel’s “stop the partisan wrangling” nonsense is sickening. I mentioned on another thread how dishonest Kimmel is. Sad that Kimmel could not be honest about the fact that it was the Democrats, without a single, solitary repub, who prohibited denying insurance to people on the basis of pre existing conditions. And sadder still that he could not be honest that the only people who are trying to kill his son are repubs. Partisan wrangling, indeed. Stop crying, Kimmel, and admit the truth.
laura
@laura: I’m just gonna leave the auto-splle just as it is, because he could easily say that too.
JPL
Since it’s Tuesday, Trump is tweeting. He wants to get rid of the filibuster, and if not, shut down the government in September. Someone needs to inform him, that the house is controlled by repubs, and they are having trouble passing a bill.
rikyrah
@Elizabelle:
ICAM.
And, make these muthaphuckas OWN IT.
JMG
@JPL: Susan Collins (who else?) circulated a letter urging the preservation of the filibuster. Sixty other Senators signed it.
zhena gogolia
@bystander:
He’s on a corporate telecast. I imagine he couldn’t get too close to the truth or they wouldn’t have let him do it at all. Perfect enemy of the good, you know.
greennotGreen
I cried through much of the monologue because nothing gets to me like other people’s grief or pain, especially where children are involved. And I agreed with everything Kimmel said in his editorial comments except the “get over their partisan squabbling” part. That makes it sound like both sides want everyone to have access to health care and they just can’t agree on the font in the bill. That is absolutely not the case. Democrats want people to have access to health care, and, guess what, so do most Republicans! It’s just not the Republicans in Congress who want what their owners want: increased profits for the shareholders.
lizzie
@bystander: Exactly. It was a moving video, but ultimately the appeal that “we all agree that babies should get healthcare” is just fantasyland. Paul Ryan and his party clearly do not believe that. Pretending that the problem is “partisan wrangling” just massively misses the point. It’s somehow become something you can’t say in polite company—that one of our two major parties doesn’t give a crap if you die because you’re poor. But if you can’t recognize the problem, you can’t fix it.
JPL
@greennotGreen: That comment is why we love your participation, in this crazy site.
MJS
“What wavering House Republican is going to decide now is the time to come out in favor of the bill?” While the answer to that question may not be the ever-popular “All of them, Katie”, it’s foolish to think that a monologue by a comedian will outweigh the benefits (albeit short-lived) that will accrue to a Republican who does the bidding of Trump.
Patricia Kayden
@Ryan: So if you’re born with a disease, you have not lived a good life? Mo should be laughed out of Congress for making such an absurd comment. This is beyond the pale.
satby
@greennotGreen: Good to see you! Sending virtual hugs and love from here.
Weaselone
@Anonymous At Work: @bystander: @lizzie:
Republicans control the House, Senate and Presidency. In order to stop this abomination, we need enough pressure on Republicans to at minimum prevent them from blowing up the legislative filibuster in the Senate and preferably enough Republican opposition to the bill to keep it from ever leaving the House. Democrats will not be enough at least until after the 2018 election and most likely through the 2020 election.
SiubhanDuinne
@JPL:
Great line! Brava!
Patricia Kayden
@JPL: Yeah go right ahead and shut down the government. Sounds good to me. Then Republicans really couldn’t pass any awful laws.
Is this the new norm where a sitting President advocates shutting down the government he heads?
laura
@greennotGreen: greennotGreen! Standing on a chair waving at you!!
Please have a ((((HUG)))).
Patricia Kayden
@Weaselone: Eventually, McConnell is going to find an excuse to blow up the remaining filibuster in the Senate. That’s just a matter of time.
StringOnAStick
@Ryan: That “did the right thing and kept their bodies healthy” thing is just so much bullshit. My husband is the fittest 59 YO that any of our friends know, he can and did spend the weekend climbing 6,000′ feet each day in order to ski powder in the back country. He was the strongest rider on our 100 mile trip to Canyonlands over Easter, besting people 20 years younger. He’s also just been diagnosed with CLL, chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia. The doctor said that most live a normal lifespan (and “normal lifespan” is my mantra now) and that there have been amazing breakthroughs in the treatment; more tests are being done to confirm and figure out when for treatment. He know has an obvious precondition, though he is referred to by our friends as the strongest guy they know. “Keep your body healthy” or else you are a bad person and deserve whatever happens? Fuck Mo Brooks.
Elizabelle
@greennotGreen: Lovely to see you! Stay mad, and stay with us.
And I agree, the “partisans” gives cover to the psychopaths.
We have to strip away their fig leaves.
Weaselone
@Patricia Kayden:
I suspect that’s true. My general point was that we need Republican help to stop the ACHA. Kimmel singling out Republican politicians and voters as vile, inhuman shitbirds who actually get off on killing babies would have been counter productive to that end.
hovercraft
Apart from the BS both sides line, that was perfect. While it won’t have the effect on the evil people who control congress, it may make enough people who do have hearts to call and shame them into killing Tryancare 3.0, here’s hoping.
@JMG:
Fuck Susan Collins, she can send out as many bullshit letters and whatnot, we all know that when push comes to shove she’ll do exactly what Mitch tells her to do. Enough of this DC game of pretending the Collins, Graham and McCain are anything other than partisan hacks who always fall in line once they’re done voicing their “principles”.
schrodingers_cat
@StringOnAStick: {{{ }}} I have been a caregiver of a NHL (Non Hodgkins Lymphoma) patient. If there is anyway I can help please let me know. You can reach me using my bloggy email.
RobertB
@geg6: My company isn’t lowering their premiums. It employs about 3500 people here in the US, which isn’t huge but isn’t small. They’re pushing HSA/HDHP now, and have reduced the ‘normal’ plan from 100% in-network to 90% in-network. I wouldn’t be surprised (all things being equal) that next year HSA will be our only choice, or the non-HSA plan will suck so bad that I’d have to take it.
IANA Health Insurance Expert, but I thought that ACA had reigned in the second derivative of increased health care costs – that costs were still increasing, but the rate of increase had flattened. I’d be happy to be wrong on that.
cynthia ackerman
Republicans in govt = Death Panel.
FlipYrWhig
@Ryan: Isn’t this also the party that thinks the worst kind of nanny-state-ism is any attempt to make it less convenient to drink carbonated corn syrup from the biggest cup possible or to encourage kids to run and eat vegetables? I’m guessing they don’t perceive the contradiction there either.
Elizabelle
@Baud: Young William Kimmel. Prenatal bad boy.
@rikyrah: What’s ICAM?
chopper
@greennotGreen:
so happy to see you!
chopper
@bystander:
if it helps spike zombie trumpcare then it helps.
Achrachno
@FlipYrWhig: But aside from those details, I’m sure they’re all fine people.
oldster
I think you people are missing the real story here.
Kimmel says that the baby’s heart problem was first “discovered” by a nurse named Nanuzh.
Now let’s face it: that is *not* the name of a Real American. That there is a Foreigner name. Probably a Middle Eastern Foreigner Name.
And unlike some people, I am not afraid to say: Radical Islamic Terrorism! There, I said it!
Connect the dots, people: it’s Radical Islamic Terrorists that are driving up our health care costs! Vote for the AHCA, to defeat ISIS!
Chris
@oldster:
Didn’t somebody literally make this argument about the NHS in the U.K. a few years back? Can’t remember if it was one of our loonies or one of theirs.
greennotGreen
@JPL: @satby: @laura:
Thanks, fellow BJers.
I have been informed by two hospice nurses that the slow decline that I seem to be on (versus the dramatic bowel perforation that is also possible) will have its ups and downs. Right now, I’m weak but in good spirits and mentally alert (okay, alert for me,) but at 4:00 o’clock this morning I had a melt down when there was a technical problem with my dilaudid pump. I wonder whether this community would like a running commentary from me in open threads, or not. Please be honest! Personally, I’m not into folks who focus on themselves and their diseases, but the journey toward death is different. I’m happy to share that if people want me to and happy never to mention it again, but I’ll still bitch about Trump!
chopper
@greennotGreen:
live blogging the end of your life. interesting concept. I’d say if it helps go for it.
Iowa Old Lady
@greennotGreen: I’d like a daily update if you can and are willing.
BC in Illinois
@StringOnAStick:
Yes. In my family as well, who had “pre-existing conditions”? My daughter who was BORN with a heart problem, and my son – the athlete – who developed a kidney condition while being a competitive cross-country runner. And then add in someone with medical expenses because someone else (!) ran into the car they were in.
So the Republicans “will allow insurance companies to require people who have higher health care costs to contribute more to the insurance pool that helps offset all these costs, thereby reducing the cost to those people who lead good lives, they’re healthy, they’ve done the things to keep their bodies healthy,” explained Brooks, “And right now, those are the people who have done things the right way that are seeing their costs skyrocketing.”
Congressman Brooks may try to backtrack from his words; my Congresswoman Ann Wagner may try to run and hide . . . [I called her office again this morning] . . . but it is hard for me to argue this point without becoming angry. You are correct:
SiubhanDuinne
@greennotGreen:
I am always very glad to see you here, and would love to see a running commentary from you, to the extent you want to and have the stamina to share your experience. The journey is one that is both universal and unique, and your insights would be fascinating. Also, bitching about Trump.
Sending you waves of {{{{{hugs}}}}}
Rugosa
@Patricia Kayden: I was talking recently with a friend about the right wing, and said that I suspected that it’s not just that they don’t care about other people, they actively want to see others suffer. My friend replied that, yes, that’s exactly it. They are obsessed with winning and losing, and the way they know they’re winning is that others are suffering.
Betty
i would also note that some of the medical professionals whose names he called sounded “foreign.” The country will suffer because medical professionals are being discouraged from coming to the US because of Trump’s policies.
SiubhanDuinne
@BC in Illinois:
I was in the car yesterday and heard him say this in real time on CNN (IOW, before his comments became a meme, generating their own coverage) and damn near swerved into the next lane I was yelling so hard. Mo Brooks has always been a pig and an idiot, but this comment goes way beyond anything I’ve ever heard him say.
The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
What still just kills me is the Biblical illiteracy on display by the talibangelicals in this country. This particular issue is dealt with explicitly in the gospels, John 9:2, to be exact. The idea that sickness or disease is the product of sin is repeatedly swatted down in both old and new testaments. If Jesus is too radical for these hypocrites, what about Job? The entire book is an essay on the fact that terrible crap sometimes happens to really good, undeserving people.
Steeplejack
@Elizabelle:
ICAM = I couldn’t agree more.
schrodingers_cat
@greennotGreen: Bitch away! And thanks for the update.
The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
@greennotGreen: I would value anything you feel like sharing, and will be sending you energy for your journey in my own culturally conditioned, weird tradition. Big love.
greennotGreen
@chopper: I’m good either way. The question was whether it would be of interest to this pack.
hovercraft
@greennotGreen:
I’m glad you are in good spirits and mentally alert. We would love to hear as much or as little as you are willing and able to share. Everyone’s journey is unique, and whatever you want to share with us is welcome, we are a large dysfunctional community and your contributions are appreciated. Take care.
pk
I actually listened to what Mo Brooks said. Much as I hate to defend him, he did not hold people responsible for pre-existing conditions (at one point he says that people have pre-existing conditions through “no fault of their own”). I know that if you want life insurance for example, your premiums will be much higher if you’re a smoker, or your car insurance goes up if you have numerous tickets or accidents. I think that’s what he meant by “healthy lifestyles”. Of course, if he was smart he’d be advocating for a large increase in preventative care and not eliminating the essential benefits of Obamacare. And a smarter interviewer would have pushed him on it. But he’s being selectively quoted. So, the man is a moron, but he’s not an evil moron. Not sure if the distinction helps.
https://boingboing.net/2017/05/02/personal-responsibility-pathol.html
D58826
I sometimes wonder if critters like Brooks are really that stupid or just think that their voters are? I also wonder what happens when a Brooks, et. al. kid, grand kid, etc. is born with a pre-existing condition. Do they go around blaming the kid? Or may be just something the parents did in their misbegotten youth.?
D58826
@pk:
I take your point but people who never smoke get lung cancer. Diabetes has a genetic component to it as does MS. So even living the life of a trappest monk doesn’t protect you. And everyone has a favorite story of the beer guzzling, cartoon a day smoker and pound of bacon for breakfast relative who lived till 90.
At some point people have to accept that s**** happens and that is why we have insurance/safety net programs
chopper
@greennotGreen:
I think so. we’re a curious bunch.
BC in Illinois
@pk:
You reference Boing-Boing . . .
https://boingboing.net/2017/05/02/personal-responsibility-pathol.html
. . . which references NY Mag . . .
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/05/republican-sick-people-dont-deserve-affordable-care.html
. . . Neither of these support your point.
Yes, people have pointed out (as these articles indicate) that there are some who feel that people should bear the cost for smoking, or being overweight, or having children, but here is Mo Brooks actual quote:
He likes people who have done things the right way, who lead good lives. Not those other people.
aimai
@StringOnAStick: I am just so sorry, Stringonastick. Just so, so, so, sorry! I will be thinking and sending up atheist prayers for you and your husband. I can’t imagine–well, I can, because I have a 56 year old husband, the feelings and pain you and yours are going through. Huge, huge hugs.
O. Felix Culpa
@chopper:
In every sense of the word.
And yes to greennotGreen, I welcome any updates you would be comfortable providing and send ((( ))) your way.
aimai
@greennotGreen: Thinking of you, too. Be at peace.
NorthLeft12
@bystander: Yeah, that reference to “Both Sides Do It” was pretty much par for the course from the media. Kimmel blew that big time. He had a chance to call them out and identify the one party that is trying to do exactly what he warned against doing, and he did not.
It is just mind blowing to me that news organizations are not saying “Repubs working hard to deny healthcare to millions of ordinary Americans”, and if criticized, ask the questioners to find one Dem [Representative, Senator, or Governor] that wants to reduce health care accessibility.
satby
@greennotGreen: as long as you’re willing to talk to us about anything, we’re going to be here to listen. We’re just happy to know you’re still with us and sending resistance energy out to the universe against Drumpf!
Hope the days have more ups than downs.
NorthLeft12
@BC in Illinois:
You know, it is getting harder and harder for me to stomach these types of arguments. We all live in a society that includes people from all sorts of backgrounds and lifestyles. We have different needs and wants, yet more and more people believe that if they cannot take advantage of, or approve of every government service, then it should not exist. It is just sickeningly selfish, and goes against almost every reason that people form communities for the common good.
Elizabelle
@oldster: Yeah. Noticed that right away, the first observant nurse had a not typlcally American name. That made the story to come so much better.
@Steeplejack:
Thank you.
Elizabelle
@greennotGreen: Another vote for your being here and saying anything you want. Yours is a journey too soon taken, and we are interested in your experience and rooting for you.
Not to get soppy, but you will find you are quite beloved here.
And that reminds me, where is that damn Amir? Have we had any recent sightings?
FlipYrWhig
@D58826: Also, it kind of seems like an odd complaint to say, “no fair, I’ve been paying for health insurance for my whole life and I didn’t even get to have a devastating illness that required enormously expensive life-saving treatment, what a gyp.”
pk
@D58826:
It wasn’t my intention to advocate for higher insurance for people with unhealthy lifestyles. I just thought that this was what Mo Brooks was saying in the interview. I know that a healthy lifestyle is not a guarantee for anything. Also this kind of distinction in healthcare is ridiculous. That’s not the way biology works.
prob50
Kimmel was right to frame it in a non-partisan way. Every thinking and feeling human being should be able to understand this at their core. The bastards who oppose health care are being shamed here and in this context their party doesn’t matter. Kimmel’s appeal is speaking directly at them. If you support health care you understand. Those that don’t need to.
Others can carry the political portion forward with the required zeal. Kimmel has provided a deeper moral foundation for that here.
Good for him.
satby
@StringOnAStick: Best wishes to you and your husband for the best possible outcome!
satby
@Elizabelle: Amir was on a couple of days ago.
Olivia
@D58826<> My mother is exactly that. She smoked for 50 years, ate the absolutely worst foods(lots of fat, additives and junk food) she could obtain and still would if the nursing home she lives in would allow it. She drank a 6 pack of beer every night after work(night shift nurse) and a 12 pack a day on her days off. She lived 2 blocks from where she worked and never once walked to or from work or anywhere else. She turned 92 last month and shows no signs of checking out anytime soon.
Neldob
@Patricia Kayden: We should make pins with that quote and pass them out at Republican meetings.
laura
@greennotGreen: Please stay. Your thoughtful comments are a pleasure, and if you are willing to share this aspect of your life, I would be very grateful.
Can the powers that be give green not Green front page status?
Uncle Cosmo
@Patricia Kayden: My somwhat-informed guess is that the Senate filibuster will be trashed if&when a wave election costs the Thugs their majorities in Congress. I conjecture that ZEGS, Yertle & the Thugs have a whole shitpile of unjust, inhumane & ALEC-friendly legislation all set to go that they’re not willing to enact right now in fear of electoral blowback. In the lame-duck session between such a wave election in November & the seating of the next Congress the following January, they’ll trigger their “Doomsday Device”, ram all those bills through a lame-duck session (eliminating the Senate filibuster if necessary), get Cheetoh Benito (or if he leaves, Densident Pence) to sign ’em, & force the new Congress to overturn them while they revert to obstructionism & Democrat-blaming. That’s my guess anyway.
Elizabelle
@StringOnAStick: You are in my thoughts. Relieved that the cancer sounds like one of those where a lot of folks die of something else first. But never a good diagnosis to get.
I hope that our National Institutes of Health — WHICH THE DEMOCRATS FUNDED TO THE TUNE OF TWO BILLION MORE — and all of our worldwide researchers can find a cure. To make cancer a mere nuisance.
I think we should all do a cancer research fundraiser, in honor of greennotGreen and all our other loved ones. To one or a few organizations that are doing excellent work and could use the bucks.
greennotGreen
@laura: Ooh, no pressure, no pressure!
sukabi
@Patricia Kayden: it’s not just illness that strikes good people, it’s accidents as well as assaults that can leave “good people” with medical costs that will ruin them just the same as “bad people” …..unless he’s saying the only “good people” are those with enough money to pay for anything and everything they might need, which is what I suspect he thinks.
Mary G
@greennotGreen: I love your comments and will read and enjoy as many as you want to make. People who disagree can skip them.
Hospice is a wonderful experience in many ways. I know that sounds weird, but it’s my experience that some people are able to let go of bullshit and be their best selves in your situation. And there is no such thing as too much Trump-bashing.
Ohio Mom
@greennotGreen: I have followed a few others who have live-blogged their transition on a breast cancer discussion board I started visiting during my bout with breast cancer a few years ago.
I don’t think I could begin to put into words how much these experiences moved me, taught me, and changed me. It is a very humbling process to witness, even as removed as I’ve been as a mere reader. It has been comforting to me to see how absolutely natural dying is, it is in some ways yet another amazing thing our bodies do.
So by all means, if it is helpful to you…
Jonothan Cullinane
@Jeffro: Couldn’t agree more! Brilliant!
TenguPhule
@Elizabelle:
Sorry to rain on this ray of hope, but never going to happen. The problem with cancer is that it has so many potential causes, vectors to originate from and its very nature all contribute to ensuring it will always be a leading cause of death. We will no doubt get better at treating it, but it will never be a mere nuisance.
maryQ
First off, I’m just gonna go out on a limb and speculate that “good lives” excludes affluent highly educated women with one or no kids, born to them later in life, because as Ross Dothan clearly confirmed for me in a column some years back that I wish I had saved, it is assumed that such women have had multiple abortions (and not simply that they are just wicked good at birth control).
Second, I’ve been in a deep funk lately because my teenage daughter, like Billy, has a heart defect. We detected it a year ago in a routine checkup, and she’s had two surgeries and takes a rainbow of pills each morning so that she can have as normal a life as possible, before…she can’t. She’ll probably be on a transplant list before she’s off of our insurance. So, if we are lucky, she will go into adulthood, and ultimately her own health insurance, with a major pre-existing condition, and an expensive regimen of anti-rejection meds.
Now think about this. A parent in my position will essentially have two choices in the GOP’s world. Let your child die soon, or save their lives but saddle them with crippling costs for the rest of their probably shortened lives.
Ohio Mom
@TenguPhule: That about summarizes it, just plain too many different types of cancers.
In a way, our cells are meant to go haywire, else there would be no evolution, and at the same time, we are built to fight cancer. All of us have some cancerous cells, with luck our immune systems makes short work of them. Once I started reading up on cancer, I realized that on a cellular level, our bodies are the Wild West, with malignant cells and other cells duking it out on an ongoing basis.
The cancer I know the most about is breast cancer, and some of the different types might as well be different diseases. Some kinds, thanks to modern medicine, actually can be mere nuisances but it is hard to imagine some of the other types ever being conquered.
TenguPhule
@Ohio Mom:
That is a brilliant metaphor.
mr_gravity
@Patricia Kayden: September = Golf
Ohio Mom
@maryQ: Oh dear, sorry to hear this. I hope you are able to find other families in the same straights for support and information. That’s where I learned the most useful and helpful things about autism (my son’s dx), from other parents.
And how anyone can identify with the contemporary GOP, I can not fathom.
maryQ
@TenguPhule: Actually, it’s more like our bodies are republics, with individual cells largely benefitting from the protection of being in the whole, each making a specific contribution, in exchange for accepting some apparent limits. Malignant cells are libertarians who say “Eff that Sh*T! Why should I be a liver cell! Why should I die when a heart attack or a car crash kills my human host! Why do I have to accept checkpoint controls and metabolic limits on the number of descendants I can have? I’m doing my own thing!!”, and then they kill you.
maryQ
@Ohio Mom: Thanks. Yes, I’m plugged in. It helps.
Ohio Mom
@TenguPhule: What I learned about breast cancer is that even very early on, individual cells can escape and move to other parts of your body (there really isn’t such a thing as early detection, most breast cancers are around ten years old before they are big enough to show up on a mammogram or be felt).
It’s a perilous journey through the blood and lymph systems, and many breast cancer cells die enroute (thank goodness). The ones that survive the journey settle in new homes (and these new homes are typically in the bone, liver, and IIRC, brain and lungs).
There they can lie dormant for a decade or longer. It is theorized that the cells around them often can “keep them in line,” and somehow prevent them from “waking up” and growing into new tumors. The whole thing is mind-boggling.
Ohio Mom
@maryQ: That just made me laugh. Such a great mix of science and political commentary.
Susan Love, the breast cancer surgeon and researcher (who had another type of cancer herself), talks about different cellular neighborhoods, and your description of our bodies as republics dovetails with her good/bad neighborhood metaphor quite nicely.
Ruckus
@Chris:
FIXIT for you.
Ruckus
@StringOnAStick:
Just talking to a friend, her father died at 75, his twin brother expects to live to 106. Hope he makes it. There is just so much chance in how our lives go, that to think that if you are born to a “good” family, you will live a prosperous and healthy life is insane. My grandfather and one of his daughters died in their mid 40s from congenital heart failure. When I told the VA doc that 5 yrs ago, he actually laughed and said, “You don’t have to worry about that, if you had congenital heart problems, you’d have died long ago.” One of his other daughters lived to be 94 and survived cancer for over 40 yrs. It’s a crap shoot, one in which the odds can be moved in our favor with reasonable healthcare, or moved against us without it.
StringOnAStick
@aimai: Thanks, aimai.
NorthLeft12
@lizzie: Yeah, my wife and I had a disagreement on that part of Mr. Kimmel’s appeal. My wife is politically aware and no friend of conservatives, but when I said that Kimmel specifically failed to identify who is trying to take away Americans accessibility to health insurance she disagreed in that both sides need to get together to improve your health care system. She never did acknowledge that one side [Rs] want to take it away, and the other side [Ds] wants people to have it. I was gobsmacked.
Of course we are Canadians so she does not understand in the least why the US does not already have a health care system like ours. We were [mostly] born and raised under a national single payer health care system…thank Dog.
Tehanu
@StringOnAStick:
Sorry to hear about your husband’s illness; hope the best for both of you.