Interesting and possibly tragic irony...

[PCIntern]

A good friend of mine is a professional who leans Republican
and invariably votes Republican, 'cause he's made A LOT of
money...I mean "A LOT OF MONEY" in his profession
(I'm going to be deliberately vague).  Unfortunately for him,
he discovered a lump and the excisional biopsy shows that it's
a moderately treatable from of cancer, with a 65% survival
rate at 5 years.  

BUT...and there's always a 'but', he was telling me, very
concerned, that he has a lousy health plan which he had
selected years ago FOR HIS EMPLOYEES (AND INCIDENTALLY
HIMSELF)(!),and so I took the opportunity, WITHOUT rancor, to
tell him that if the Obama H/C plan had been implemented
directly after it was passed, then pre-existing conditions
would not be a reason to turn someone away if they WISHED TO
UPGRADE one's health plan, and that he'd be OK in this regard
as it would be the LAW.

I wish for once, that life was videotaped, because the look on
his face was PRICELESS.  It was WTF? to the fifth power...

Ah...if only more people were empathetic BEFORE "it
happened to them"...

This is incredibly sad for him, for his family, and for me
personally...I  consider him to be one of my best professional
friends and there's nothing I wouldn't do for him and
vice-versa over 35 years of professional and personal
association.  I always overlooked his politics because he was
never an evil Rethug...he was the fiscal conservative/socially
libertarian type.  They, of course, have gone the way of the
dinosaur...you know, the one that Adam and Eve rode when the
Lord tossed them out of Eden.

[hlthe2b]

1. Did he get it?

While I'm sure your friend is highly intelligent, I've found that the RW brainwashing can sometimes negate that fact and what should be obvious, is often not. Do you think he really gets how much he has been screwed by our previous health care policies and how ironic it is that his "side" is trying to overturn legislation that can only help them?

I'm sorry for your friend. I fear so many more of us will be facing this, but at least he has both insurance (of some kind) and personal $$ resources to fight it. I keep remembering the woman whose heart was restarted and upon returning to consciousness, refused to be transported to the hospital because she had no health insurance. Now, THAT is the tragedy that I personally fear and that such refusals of medical care will no longer be an anomaly.

[PCIntern]

2. Oh, he 'got it' all right...

he's a whole lot swifter than I am...genius level and impossibly good-looking as well. When we were younger, I got the 'passed-over' women when we'd go out together. Not all bad...

[snagglepuss]

14. How can some genius types be RW? Serious question.

I don't mean to be disresectful to your friend but do you think it is a question of greed trumping sense? An Ayn Rand belief that greed is good? How can someone who is so intelligent not see value, if only in regard to their own self-interest, in communal goods such as decent health care, education, infrastructure etc?

[Mariana]

16. A genius-level IQ does not make one immune to propaganda. nt.

[Chulanowa]

17. People can't be smart all the time

Even Steven Hawking has had his off days.

[Kerrytravelers]

3. Just like my in-laws.

My mother-in-law, the nurse and my father-in-law, an accountant who has worked in non-profit heath care, are such Republicans who whine and moan about the old bootstraps, and then, he lost (yet another) job and she hasn't worked for years. They have no healt care and she got into a car accident. They are so in debt now, and don't have two dimes to rub together, and now they think about people needing access to health care.

They are so typical. Bush lovin' religious fundamentalists and believers in only a free market until they need something. So... you know, typical republicans. :eyes:

[Fumesucker]

4. The Republicans have been anything but fiscally conservative for decades now..

Ronald Reagan never submitted a balanced budget to Congress and indeed Congress actually cut at least one of his budgets.

Which brings us to socially libertarian, Republicans have *never*, *ever* been socially libertarian.

Sorry, your friend just wanted lower personal income taxes on himself, that was the sum total of his Republican politics.

[PCIntern]

5. If you knew his social history,

you wouldn't say that...honest. Trust me.

[Fumesucker]

7. And yet you say he's genius level..

I don't buy it, anyone with a room temperature IQ could tell the Repubs haven't been fiscally conservative since at least the Reagan era.

And it certainly doesn't take a genius to figure out that Republicans are anything but socially libertarian on every single issue save firearms.

[Hello_Kitty]

9. So he was fine with the GOP imposing their "morality" on other people.

As long as he got his tax cuts and, hey, it's not like he wouldn't be able to afford a secret "procedure" for a woman in his life who needed one.

[david13]

8. The republicans were never serious about a balanced budget.

They touted it to get votes, but they always were in favor of deficit spending for the military.
dc

[pinboy3niner]

6. I have a lot of conservative friends

The kind of friends with whom you can have a civil discussion about politics, and even appreciate some of their jokes about your pols, as they appreciate some of your jokes about theirs.

That's a sad story, but at least your friend is someone who has the resources to get get the treatment he needs. Too many don't. Maybe you'ved helped him begin to see the light.

[MadMaddie]

10. My grandmother who has passed away had a saying...

"Hard heads make soft butts"!!

Translation

People have to learn the hard way about life.....

[blm]

11. Hate to say this, but, I reccd your post for its sincerity, PC and apparently it's still at zero

because someone is unreccing. Wow....I hope the admins make note.

[metapunditedgy]

13. I recced it too, just to see. Still at zero.

I can understand somebody not wanting to rec this post, but who would *unrec* it?


Edit: this was a rather mild post for my 1000th post!

[gratuitous]

12. I'm beginning to think

I'm beginning to think that some people are missing some mental component that enables them to imagine bad fortune happening to them. Or that they themselves might be the victim of bad choices in life. The very bad turn of events that befell your friend has almost certainly been a subject on which he has held forth about people making bad choices in life.

[blm]

15. I agree

,