Posted on 02/06/2010 8:26:59 PM PST by Starman417
Tom Maguire does a stellar job at actual reporting here on the woman, whom Obama alleged, died because of the big bad health insurance companies and was then buried with a Obama shirt on.
All the more stellar since the MSM can't be bothered to type in a few keywords on google:
Obama told the crowd that the woman had no health insurance, so viewed that way the Times reporting is literally accurate. However, the woman, Melanie Shouse, did in fact have insurance - she had a catastrophic policy with a $5,000 deductible and did not want to drop a few hundred bucks on a routine exam and a mammogram, despite feeling a lump in her breast at age 37.Tom links to an interview with Shouse in which she said she took a gamble on insurance because she had just dropped 30 grand into a new business. She only took out catastrophic insurance in which the deductibles were high. She felt a lump but did not go to the doctor, once again gambling. Then, when she finally DID go see a doctor they told her what she already knew, cancer.
When she did seek care, she went straight to Siteman Cancer Center.Stage 4 cancer was the diagnosis and while she does admit the delay in diagnosis was a problem, she doesn't see that as the only problem:"By then, I could have been diagnosed from across the street. It wasn't a surprise," she said.
My chance of survival was pegged at just 13% as a result of the delay in diagnosis and treatment caused by inadequate health coverage.and now no insurance would accept her so medicaid paid for her treatment. After all this Tom has a few questions:
once diagnosed, she promptly availed herself of Medicaid. So why the wait - wouldn't she have been eligible for Medicaid six months earlier (or whatever), or did the business have to falter first?
Read more at floppingaces.net...
The only thing really shocking about any of this is that anybody still watches MSM.
“The only thing really shocking about any of this is that anybody still watches MSM.”
Many elderly people watch MSM, which is why they often vote for the wrong candidates. That’s why I write letters to the editor, to show the other side, because elderly folks read those, too.
Of course Obama doesn’t want you to know how many people die as a result of the inadequacy of socialized medicine in Canada and the UK, not to mention the rationing of the care.
Here is just one article on this:
NHS accused of 17,000 unnecessary deaths
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/jan/18/health
More than 17,000 people receiving treatment in the UK have died unnecessarily because of the inadequacies of the NHS, it is claimed today.
The figure, in a paper published by the Taxpayers’ Alliance, is calculated using data given to the World Health Organisation. It compares the number of people who died prematurely, even though their illness was treatable, in five European countries.
The NHS performs worse on this measure of “mortality amenable to healthcare” than Spain, France, the Netherlands and Germany. If it had achieved the average of those four, 17,157 fewer deaths would have occurred in 2004, the most recent year for which the data is available, says the alliance.
Life is a gamble we all lose.........Took a chance, she “bought the farm.”
One less Obama T-Shirt, it went up in flames!
Of course she died because she had cancer and exacerbated the problem with really bad decisions. Zero really doesn’t mind using anyone...
I receive this from Moveon.org
Dear MoveOn member,
Earlier this week, we received incredibly sad news. Melanie Shouse, a devoted MoveOn Council leader in St. Louis and tireless health care advocate, passed away after a battle with breast cancer.
Melanie was a true fighter. While she was involved in many issues with MoveOn, she always said health care was her heart—and even after treatments began, she came to every single health care rally, speaking out about the injustices she was suffering under our broken health care system.
Melanie’s story is a painful reminder of why we need to fight as hard as we can to get real health care reform passed, now.
Our friends at TrueMajority are gathering messages of condolence to deliver to Melanie’s family this weekend. The email they sent is below. To add your message, just click this link.
http://www.truemajority.org/MelanieShouse/moveon
Thanks for all that you do.
–Kat, Keauna, Ilya, Lenore, and the rest of the team
Dear Kat,
Melanie Shouse has died.
Melanie was a small business owner from Missouri battling stage four breast cancer, who also had to fight with insurance companies who didn’t want to pay for her treatment. She didn’t take that lying down—she spoke out, she protested, she became a leader in the movement for a more just health care system. Maybe you remember the video thank-you she sent to you and other TrueMajority members last October for being part of that movement.1
The cancer took Melanie’s life last week. To her family, we can only express our deepest regret and sympathy. If you’d like to send your sympathy as well, you can sign our guest book, and we’ll deliver your messages to the family this weekend.
http://www.truemajority.org/MelanieShouse/moveon
We’re sorry we didn’t get health care reform done sooner. Sorry that insurance coverage isn’t more affordable and accessible for millions of Americans who need it. Mostly, we’re sorry to lose our friend.
But Melanie would not have wanted us to stop fighting for reform. In fact, she asked that those attending her memorial service wear their activist t-shirts. So tomorrow, in lieu of flowers, let’s deliver our condolences, put on a campaign t-shirt and remember why we fight and who we are fighting for.
-Matt
Matt Holland
TrueMajority / USAction
1—http://www.moveon.org/r?r=86397&id=18852-17282031-3rRxQTx&t=1
PAID FOR BY MOVEON.ORG POLITICAL ACTION, http://pol.moveon.org/. Not authorized by any
My daughter contracted breast cancer at the age of 22. She was caught in a space between insurance coverage. The medical treatments were expensive but owing and paying for her health care was more important to her and her son than waiting it out. 8 years later she is still paying it off. I am very proud of her. And she isn’t looking for someone else to pay for her.
I have no use for someone who didn’t take the warning signs seriously and instead spent her money elsewhere.
Sorry, no sympathy.
I have no sympathy either. She ignores it for YEARS, then fights when she gets inadequate Socialized medicine, for free. Life is hard, you have to face things square-on.
thanks for the background!
When you make bad decisions you have to take your lumps.
Too bad she didn’t avail herself of the services of Siteman’s Cancer Center’s Mammography Van
http://www.siteman.wustl.edu/internal.aspx?id=1407
In today’s WSJ:
“Mr. Strader, a 42-year-old radio producer, was the most seriously injured person hurt in the Winter X Games in 1997, having cracked his sternum, bruised his heart and broke his jaw, leg and back in three places in his wipeout. He said he had to declare bankruptcy because he couldn’t pay his medical bills.” http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703427704575051482104942838.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_RIGHTTopCarousel
Mr. Strader’s accident and subsequent “medical bankruptcy” are unfortunate. But is the fact that he went bankrupt a “problem” in need of a government solution? One could as easily argue that it was the natural consequence of choices he freely made as an adult. He epitomizes the idea of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” With freedom comes responsibility. I for one would prefer to live in a world in which I am free to take my chances than one in which government paternalistically protects me from my own choices and/or compels me to help bankroll the risks associated with the freely elected choices made by others.
This is the heart of the health care debate. Democrats will always point to health risks/costs that are beyond an individual’s control and argue that it is our collective responsibility to assist others in such a plight. But no one has devised a system that can achieve the latter without also inadvertently encouraging some of the former. And as with anything, the more “society” pays for irresponsibility, the more of it will occur. This is neither efficient nor fair. The advantage of reliance on private charity to resolve such problems is that charity is inherently better equipped to condition assistance upon appropriate behavior. And private charity is least likely to help out those who have behaved in a thoroughly irresponsible manner.
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