The thread below is copied from my Facebook page.
It began with me re-posting a campaign button-style picture of a Republican elephant with “GOP Health Care Plan?” written above it and “Don’t Get Sick!” written below it.
I added a comment to the picture, saying “I thought it was, “We hope you die.”
Pretty typical Lee B. Weaver stuff. What followed was the absolute perfect example of why I enacted my current zero-tolerance policy for trolls, kooks and liars on my page. I’ve copied the entire thread below – deleting last names and a couple of non-essential remarks.
Mike: (referring to the "Don't Get Sick!" remark) Shouldn't that be everyone's health care plan, though?
Lee: That's not a plan, Mike. It's a wish. And an unrealistic one, at that.
Mike: I'm not a GOPer, but I was under the impression that one could actually make solid plans to avoid sickness, and follow through with them. Do those, who think it's just a pipe dream, suspect sickness is some mystery fate that is unavoidable? =)
Lee: Plan all you want. Follow through all you want. That's not the point. The point is, when you get sick, it would be nice if there was a way to obtain and/or afford health care.
Mike: Well, imagine paying $400/mo and higher for health insurance (a number that you can't pick), which you're probably going to be doing for the rest of your life anyway. Or, imagine not having any insurance, and then paying a number that you pick each month, to go toward paying a debt it off. Maybe you put $50 toward the total that month, or maybe you put $200 that month. Either way you're going to be paying for pretty much, forever. In the first way, you pay an insane amount, forever, starting now. The second way, you don't start paying until you have the procedure, which could be never.
Mike: And planning ahead to ensure you don't get sick, is the incentive for not having to pay someone forever.
Lee: Good heavens, Mike. There are so many unrealistic elements to your post, I hardly know where to start. So, I'll just pick three things.
1. Health care bills are the leading cause of personal bankruptcy in America. The idea you can simply name your own payment plan is ludicrous.
2. You appear to be assuming that a person can receive any necessary health care without having insurance. Honestly?? People who DO have health care are frequently denied treatment.
3. You seem to be basing the bulk of your 'thesis' on the ability for a person to behave in such a way as to prevent the need for medical care. This makes no sense, especially in the absence of any supporting data on your part. Is a healthy diet-and-exercise plan going to keep me from being in a car accident? Slipping on ice? Contracting a brain tumor? Psoriasis? Asthma? Arthritis? Leukemia? Tendonitis? Childhood illnesses? Earaches? Strep? Food poisoning? Do I really need to list the virtually endless examples of un-predictable/non-preventable illnesses, accidents and conditions?
Mike, I think you ventured a bit too far out on the argumentative limb.
1. Health care bills are the leading cause of personal bankruptcy in America. The idea you can simply name your own payment plan is ludicrous.
2. You appear to be assuming that a person can receive any necessary health care without having insurance. Honestly?? People who DO have health care are frequently denied treatment.
3. You seem to be basing the bulk of your 'thesis' on the ability for a person to behave in such a way as to prevent the need for medical care. This makes no sense, especially in the absence of any supporting data on your part. Is a healthy diet-and-exercise plan going to keep me from being in a car accident? Slipping on ice? Contracting a brain tumor? Psoriasis? Asthma? Arthritis? Leukemia? Tendonitis? Childhood illnesses? Earaches? Strep? Food poisoning? Do I really need to list the virtually endless examples of un-predictable/non-preventable illnesses, accidents and conditions?
Mike, I think you ventured a bit too far out on the argumentative limb.
Johnny: "Plan ahead to ensure you don't get sick". Wow! You and I could plan all we want and still get really sick. Some people can't afford to pay even though they DO work one or even two jobs. That is what is sad and what Lee is talking about. It seems like the GOP don't mind them dying. They don't make much money anyway and are scum. That is the way they think.
Linda: Those damn republicans. Maybe they will all get sick and die. But then who could you hate?
Lee: I'm not that lucky.
James: I would be happy to live in a world with universal health care and no one to hate. Don't see a problem with that scenario.
Julia: "Plan ahead to ensure you don't get sick." Gee what a concept. I sure wish I could have given my Dad a crystal ball to tell him that he would get pancreatic cancer. But all the the knowledge in the world would not have saved him from dying from that dreadful disease. The fortunate thing was that he and Mom had good insurance. I wish everyone was so fortunate.
Mike: 1. I would be highly suspect of that claim, regarding bankruptcy. There are too many variables that go into ultimate causes for personal bankruptcy, including life choices that could have been easily avoided. If you didn't have kids, for instance -- but no one is willing to blame paternal instinct as a cause for bankruptcy. :: sarcasm ahead :: Heaven forbid someone actually check the budget to see whether they could afford the costs of childbearing before bearing.
Every single hospital I have ever been to, ever, ever ever, has asked how I planned to pay for a major procedure, if any, and when sending a bill, has simply sent a next month's bill for the same amount if nothing was given that month. If something was given that month, the amount was lopped off and the balance showed the decrease. Medical bills, to my knowledge, carry no interest charge for a missed month like a credit card would. You pay what you can, and then next month you pay more, whatever you can. Plus, unlike with health insurance, you actually have a hope of paying it off completely. With health insurance, you never stop paying.
2. So tell me, how vitally necessary are the procedures that become denied? Are there not alternatives to high-tech procedures that, while less effective or precise, require -- heaven forbid -- enduring hardship in the meantime?
3. Do you honestly believe you need hospital care for all of those? You can't simply endure a moment's worth of hardship, and must have every cut and scrape tended by lines of butlers to suit your every moan? What if, just for giggles -- the unavoidable circumstance of death was NOT SCARY. Would a belief that "death is not scary," change the way you feel about contracting an illness that would lead to a sooner death than you had personally planned for? Would living a life that has no loose ends to tie up once you die, help you more easily grasp the inevitability of death, and to encounter circumstances that lead to death in a much more confident manner, that, if denied health care, that the game is simply over and that's that -- without believing you are OWED something by the universe to live longer than you thought you should have?
Could you also not live your life so as to SAVE YOUR MONEY instead of spending on cable television, having more children, owning a large house, or driving a car worth more than $2k, in the anticipation of having to spend a large chunk, if not all of it, on approaching health care costs? This is insurance of your own doing, that you can't whine about that someone won't provide you because of xyz condition. Could you not work three jobs or more, to pay for that same self-built plan, AHEAD OF TIME, to which you contribute your own money, at intervals you personally decide, for however much you want -- just the same as the family who works to pay them off AFTER the fact? In the mean time, YOU have the money in the bank. With your way, you will never see that money again, and may be paying on it for thirty years before you'll ever actually need it. My way requires discipline..
Every single hospital I have ever been to, ever, ever ever, has asked how I planned to pay for a major procedure, if any, and when sending a bill, has simply sent a next month's bill for the same amount if nothing was given that month. If something was given that month, the amount was lopped off and the balance showed the decrease. Medical bills, to my knowledge, carry no interest charge for a missed month like a credit card would. You pay what you can, and then next month you pay more, whatever you can. Plus, unlike with health insurance, you actually have a hope of paying it off completely. With health insurance, you never stop paying.
2. So tell me, how vitally necessary are the procedures that become denied? Are there not alternatives to high-tech procedures that, while less effective or precise, require -- heaven forbid -- enduring hardship in the meantime?
3. Do you honestly believe you need hospital care for all of those? You can't simply endure a moment's worth of hardship, and must have every cut and scrape tended by lines of butlers to suit your every moan? What if, just for giggles -- the unavoidable circumstance of death was NOT SCARY. Would a belief that "death is not scary," change the way you feel about contracting an illness that would lead to a sooner death than you had personally planned for? Would living a life that has no loose ends to tie up once you die, help you more easily grasp the inevitability of death, and to encounter circumstances that lead to death in a much more confident manner, that, if denied health care, that the game is simply over and that's that -- without believing you are OWED something by the universe to live longer than you thought you should have?
Could you also not live your life so as to SAVE YOUR MONEY instead of spending on cable television, having more children, owning a large house, or driving a car worth more than $2k, in the anticipation of having to spend a large chunk, if not all of it, on approaching health care costs? This is insurance of your own doing, that you can't whine about that someone won't provide you because of xyz condition. Could you not work three jobs or more, to pay for that same self-built plan, AHEAD OF TIME, to which you contribute your own money, at intervals you personally decide, for however much you want -- just the same as the family who works to pay them off AFTER the fact? In the mean time, YOU have the money in the bank. With your way, you will never see that money again, and may be paying on it for thirty years before you'll ever actually need it. My way requires discipline..
James G: Whatever in life has disappointed you so very much, I hope you get help in addressing it. Otherwise that blind curve you are speeding toward may just be a dead end. Do you have family or loved ones?
Julia: Well, you can be highly suspect of that statistic if you want, but Lee is right and it is a fact that catastrophic illness and injury is leading cause of bankruptcy. Bush's claim that the bankruptcy laws needed to be tightened so much that even the deserving cannot get relief because of fraud and abuse was absolute crap. The rest of your rant I cannot even imagine how in the world you twisted that logic, but I will leave that to Lee. One of the reasons I quit posting on Lee's posts is because it was to exhausting and futile to argue with such perverted logic. I ususally agree with him. Because, he does his research.
Mike: I can, however, agree to disagree.
Julia: Not to mention that I hope in Heaven's name that you don't get thrown a curve ball in your life Mr. Moore. Heaven forbid something happens to you that you have no control over. I hope you are that lucky and that you are successful in planning for every contingency so you can avoid the stigma of being called a dead weight or freeloader.
James G: "I can, however, agree to disagree." What a meaningless statement used by so many with groundless arguments. Think about it.
James: Wow
Lee: Mike. Stop now. That's got to be among the dumbest, must futile attempts at sounding clever I've encountered. Stop or be stopped.
Mike: No, it is employed by those who recognize that a debate will result in a stalemate. We can, however, keep moving our kings around the chessboard if you want. People who can't agree to disagree stay in a fruitless war for years on end, and ...See More
Julia: And its these kinds of folks that have control of the House now. Isn't that comforting.
Lee: You know what? Fuck this. This is exactly the kind of hijacking I was talking about Friday that I'm fucking sick of. Say goodbye to Mike.
Julia: Ok Icarus, don't fly to close to the sun or you will get burned and fall to your death.
Julia: I guess he thought we would all be duly impressed with the mythic reference. sheesh
Lee: Mike's head is now on a symbolic stake at the gates to my Facebook castle, to hopefully serve as a warning to the other trolls.
James G: Narcissus might be a better match. Oh wait, Narcissus would not hide his face...unless he turned Ninja!
Julia: Lmao! What an undeniable lunatic. I mean seriously, I do all my research on Wikipedia!
Suzanne: Mike obviously never worked in medical collections. I did, for five years. What I saw scared the hell out of me.
Pat: Where does Mike get his insurance for only $400 a month, that's what I'd like to know?!?
Lee: I wondered the same thing. But I didn't want to encourage him by actually engaging in further conversation. I know enough about him that kinda suspected it wasn't really true, as I likewise suspected about his other claims. I think Mike maintains a pretty casual relationship with reality.
Pat: When we lived in Massachusetts and were unemployed, our COBRA was $1500 a month.
Suzanne: "Casual relationship with reality" is dead right, Lee... it doesn't take a whole lot of time in the adult world to see copious evidence that one's health is a matter of both planning AND random events. Plus, he appears to not have the common sense to refrain from arguing a point on which he has no experience or information... like his statement that when he's had hospital bills they just keep billing him, cheerfully accepting what he sends- or doesn't send. That's, um, not how it works. At all. Where the hell did he even get such an idea?
And what's with his repeated digs on people with kids? Even to the point of suggesting that people might just accept death instead of getting treatment for terminal illnesses... what about people who might happen to like to survive to raise their children? I personally refused to have children because I didn't think my situation was good enough, but I don't pretend that the rest of the world is obligated to follow my lead. (It probably would be good, but I know that's not how life works!) This guy appears to be the Crowned Prince of If Everybody Was Just Like Me The World Would Be A Better Place.
On occasion I hear arguments like Mike's. They're always proposed by Republicans and Libertarians... and ALWAYS from white guys who don't have a clue how much "good fortune" has played a role in their lives. They're always guys who love having everything in order; everything done right and everything in its place. They have been so sheltered from chaos that they underestimate its role in the universe
And what's with his repeated digs on people with kids? Even to the point of suggesting that people might just accept death instead of getting treatment for terminal illnesses... what about people who might happen to like to survive to raise their children? I personally refused to have children because I didn't think my situation was good enough, but I don't pretend that the rest of the world is obligated to follow my lead. (It probably would be good, but I know that's not how life works!) This guy appears to be the Crowned Prince of If Everybody Was Just Like Me The World Would Be A Better Place.
On occasion I hear arguments like Mike's. They're always proposed by Republicans and Libertarians... and ALWAYS from white guys who don't have a clue how much "good fortune" has played a role in their lives. They're always guys who love having everything in order; everything done right and everything in its place. They have been so sheltered from chaos that they underestimate its role in the universe
Suzanne: From his profile: "As far as romance goes, I think I'd go out with any gal at least once, if she does the asking. The biggest stipulation is that I am "childfree" and will remain that way. Even if we have world-record chemistry, her having or wanting kids one day is the light-switch off in consideration of romance."
People who dislike children that much really creep me OUT.
People who dislike children that much really creep me OUT.
WOW, unbelievable!!!
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