Please explain this to me

[ramapo]

My wife's friend is a staunch Republican/Tea Partier. She thinks Obama is awful and health care reform a travesty (and not for the reasons that some of us might think so too). She recently told my wife during a discussion on health care reform that the insurance companies are businesses out to make money and they should be free to make as much as they want to in any way they can.

Now this person is single, works two jobs, makes about $35K a year and leaves on the edge of fiscal collapse. She is divorced and her scumbag ex did everything he could to get out of paying alimony and child support. She works for a lawyer (another good Republican) who last week terminated their health insurance policy effective the end of November. I do not think he blamed ObamaCare, just said he isn't paying for it any longer.

Now this is New Jersey where small group insurance is very expensive and individual issue is obscenely expensive. It would cost her $400 a month for a crappy basic policy with limited benefits. A more standard PPO/HMO with significant deductibles costs between $600 and $1000 a month.

Obviously this person will join the uninsured on December 1. Her health problems will go untreated or perhaps she will have to sell her house as she does have significant medical issues. Or she will get care and the bill will be paid by the rest of us. It is not inconceivable that she dies.

Go figure. I doubt her feelings on HCR will suddenly change but I cannot for the life of me figure how people like her can reconcile their personal situations with their political choices. Admittedly, the HCR act does nothing for her today and even when fully enacted, may not really help her situation... but it should.

The saddest reality is that most Europeans cannot even conceive of this situation and so many Americans, this woman included, are just clueless that this sick reality that we live in is not found in any other industrialized country in the world.

[Scuba]

1. She's been drinking kool-ade. Only when...

...she experiences personal tragedy (sounds like soon) will she wake up.

[ramapo]

2. I wonder

I really wonder if anything will wake her up. It is just so bizarre to me. A perfect example fo voting against your own self interest.

[JustAnotherGen]

3. She *gulp*

Deserve what she gets.

I live in NJ too - and I'd be willing to be she screamed No Bama the day Christie got elected - right?

[SheilaT]

4. If you can possibly have the converstaion with her,

it might be interesting to find out if she actually thinks it's just hunky-dory that she's going to be without health insurance. And, along with that, does she think it's perfectly fine that people declare bankruptcy because of overwhelming medical bills -- and most of those who do so had health insurance.

But yeah, if she believes that stuff and votes Republican than she fully deserves it. Unfortunately, those of us who believe differently and vote differently most emphatically do NOT deserve it.