Today at the religious right’s annual “Voter Values Summit,” former Arkansas governor and Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee had this to say about health insurance for people with pre-existing conditions:
“It sounds so good, and it’s such a warm message to say we’re not gonna deny anyone from a preexisting condition. Look, I think that sounds terrific, but I want to ask you something from a common sense perspective. Suppose we applied that principle [to] our property insurance. And you can call your insurance agent and say, ‘I’d like to buy some insurance for my house.’ He’d say, ‘Tell me about your house.’ ‘Well sir, it burned down yesterday, but I’d like to insure it today.’ And he’ll say ‘I’m sorry, but we can’t insure it after it’s already burned.’ Well, no preexisting conditions.”
So people with pre-existing conditions who can’t get health insurance should just die? We didn’t realize the religious right sees human beings who are seriously ill as being like houses that have burned down. Silly us.
When they say “pro-life” they mean “pro-good life for the well-heeled.”
Typically, pre-existing conditions related to medical conditions that pre-existed enrollment in a new program with the proviso that if it was covered under a previous insurance plan, it would continue to be covered. Likewise, most plans defer payment on an pre-existing condition for a year after enrollment.
The most accurate representation of the Huckaby analogy in medical terms is that the patient died befoer enrollment. Or that the car was already totalled before being insured.
The underlying rationale of pre-existing conditions in medical insurance is to preclude people from getting a job just because they are sick, which assertion is rather sick. Since employer health insurance and retirement benefits are a historical oddity, Huckaby is beating a dead donkey.
As a Christian, I think we should be specific here and in no uncertain terms. It is FORMER baptist preacher Mike Huckabee who was doing the talking.
When they say “pro-life” they mean “pro-good life for the well-heeled.”
I have a theory on that one. At the risk of painting with too broad of a brush, historically speaking, it is a fairly well known fact that Christian fundamentalist and Christian Neo-Fundamentalist people (as a group) have been what the British might call “lower class economic bottom feeders” in American society. They were poor people who wanted desperately to move up the food chain and claim their part of the American dream. Over the past 40 years or so, they have been moving up that chain. My theory, hypothesis, or whatever you want to call it, is that they (as represented now by the Religious Right) are in stark fear that some “governmental event” will occur that will drive them back down the food chain to live out life again as the bottom feeders that they once were. This is why they have all of these extreme fears about budget deficits, too much government spending, and poor/sick people who might take what they have. Therefore, their efforts are not about Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God—not really. Their efforts are about grabbing and holding on desperately to the “fair share” of the American dream that their religious forebears were never able to attain. They have tasted it over the past 40 years, and it tastes good. Anything that they perceive as a threat to their “Little Precious” must be eliminated. One could even argue that they hate President Obama because he represents a group of ethnic Americans that ARE still today as extreme religionists once WERE economically. One could view it as fear and loathing of the figure that represents what they once were.
Irony:
For at least two generations, low-cost federal grants and loans for college are what moved the children of these extreme religionists out of their bottom-feeding poverty and onto the upward flowing chain to the American dream. Yet, they despise the very government that made their success possible.
“This is why they have all of these extreme fears about budget deficits, too much government spending….”
Unless a Reagan or Bush is engineering the spending and resulting deficits. Then they aren’t nearly as concerned.
While there is some evidence that looks like a “lower economic class bottom feeder” using Charles theory, a more accurate assessment of the cultural underpinnings of the Christian Fundamentalist is described in Senator Webb’s book “Born Fighting, How the Scot-Irish Changed America” which is the history of the Scots-Irish aka “Red-Necks” aka “Crackers”.
Wiki: Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America (ISBN 978-0-7679-1688-2) is a book by Jim Webb published in 2004. It is an history of the Scots-Irish in the United States. Webb maintains that Scots-Irish attitudes form the bedrock of American society, especially among the working class. Webb details the history of many US Presidents of Scots-Irish ancestry.
In short, the Scots who had found themselves on the losing side of wars with the British all too often, where given offers to mgrate to Ireland (Ulster) to work on English “plantations”. When the opportunity to emigrate to America, they were invited to keep moving west until they reached not settled by the English colonists but contested by existing native Indians. There was added the skills of the over the mountain settles and moved inexorably down the chain of the Alleghenies.
As described by Webb, the Scots=Irish have been repressed by one successive group of well educated self important wealth classes, and as such bear a deep and abiding hatred of all things smacking of elitism. That they had to fight to Scot, Irish, and English ruling classes, and continue to fight against Indians and any who would attempt to lord it over them, is a key feature found in American Populism.
The the original fighting between the United Kingdom when King James I (aka King James VI of Scotland) tried to establish a uniform Book of Common Prayer. The Scot threw the books at their Angiican minister and triggered a series of events resulting in the British Civil War in which the Scots switched sides a number of times but made it to the losers side.
The last Scottish rebellion was when Bonnie Prince Charles returned to try to overthrow King George II resulted in defeat at Culloden and the explusion and total suppression of Scottish culture in what is known as “The FortyFive”.
A strong faith in the Protestant faith as represented by Bible reading placed the existence of the Bible as a moral cornerstone of their cultureMoving Scots to Ireland it was thought was to keep the Iriah Catholic in line. That’s a plan that didn’t work so well as the Protestants and the Catholics in Ireland, especially in Ulster are still killing each other.
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Rugged terrain breeds rugged cultures where arable land is a premium and boudaries are easily reconznize by ridges and rivers. The best examples of this culural side effect by terrain is found in Japan (before the Tokugawa), Switzerland, the Caucusus, and Greece.
Wheat and grains are best transported and sold in liquid form, as in Whiskey. This has been the economic underpinnings for Scot-Irish for centuries,
Add these elements together one can see the main stays of Scots-Irsh/Redneck/Cracker culture as the Bible, guns, and Whiskey and a healthy contempt for the smarty pants. As the industrial might of the US grew, many of the dirt poor (black and redneck) moved to where the jobs are, and have carried their culture with them. The Cracker Diaspora has influenced many, particular of German extract, and wherever there is Country Music, there are those with guns, bibles, and whiskey.
One cannot dismiss them as “lower economic bottom feeders” without them taking up that as a battle cry. From Bennington to Kings Mountain, and in battles ever since, they contribute to the defense of the nation more than most othe grups.
One error to make is to assume that they don’t make serious scientific, and economic contributions
What is the point of only insuring the healthy wealthy?
This alleged man-of-the-cloth is comparing people to houses. To him, people are nothing but bricks and stones and mortar and carpentry and electrical wiring and plumbing. Well, we do have structural elements indeed but what happened to souls and morals and having value just for being a human beings? F**ckabee has thrown that thinking away obviously. He is concerned only with money and profit. My guess is that he has a HELL of a lot of stock in an insurance company, that’s what I think.
Which answers your question, John C. The point of insuring only the healthy wealthy is BIG PROFITS FOR HEALTH INSURANCE COMPANIES. (Uh, like they aren’t already making a killing in profits, excuse the pun). You can’t make a profit by paying people’s medical bills. You make a profit by denying care and terminating clients.
Catholics and Protestants killing each other in Ulster? That’s news to me. Did George Mitchell’s much-celebrated Good Friday Peace Accord of 1998 end?
I just got back from the service down at our church, which is very much of a New Testament and Jesus-centered church. The pastor’s subject was money. Something quite important was noted in the sermon. According to our pastor, in the New Testament Jesus has more to say about money than any other subject, including heaven and hell. If you examine all of those passages carefully, one finds something interesting. The Jesus message is this: “Money is nothing.” In the mind of Jesus, people, their needs, and their spiritual well being are the most important things of all. People are far more important than money.
Contrast that position with Mike Huckabee’s statement about insurance. Clearly, in his mind, money and the economic well-being of insurance companies are more important than people. In the eyes of the Tea Party, money is more important than people. Why are they so upset? They are so upset because no one is taking proper care of the nation’s money problem. Then there is the NEW Republican Party of today. That would be the Governor Perry, Michelle Bachman, and Ann Coulter Republican where money is ALWAYS more important than people. They believe that you should take care of the money FIRST so the money will someday take care of the people. Yet, when the money id there and the chance comes, they lift not a single gospel finger to help suffering people with that money when it becomes available. They say it is against their deepest beliefs and most tightly held philosophy.
Contrast that with Jesus and his position on money. Recall his words, “The love of money is the root of all evil.” I remain convinced in my mind and in my soul that the Religious Right, Tea Party, and the new Republican Party are deeply and abidingly evil and are a major part of that thing in this world that is referred to in the Bible as the “spirit of the Anti-Christ.”
I tell you my friends. Many are looking on November 2, 2010, with gloom and doom. I was too at one point, but not anymore. It is the day of salvation sporting a disguise. As the old saying goes, “Those whom the gods would destroy they first fill with pride.” In their minds, the hand of God is hoisting them and their movement to the distant heights above all things because of their great righteousness and the truth of what they so earnestly believe (money is more important than people). It never occurs to them that the hand may have brought them to such great heights for another purpose. When the hand let’s go, the distance of the fall will be great and the splatter against the concrete below will be much harder, more profound, and punishing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FZYNb7aiXk&feature=related
I don’t know about their role in American society, but speaking as a descendant (my father’s side all the way back to the 1600s) of Highland Scots the idea that:
“the Scots=Irish have been repressed by one successive group of well educated self important wealth classes, and as such bear a deep and abiding hatred of all things smacking of elitism”
is pure piffle. May well be true of the Irish, but definitely not of the Scots. The Scots aren’t impressed by wealth. But they’re very impressed by learning.
As the saying goes: “the chief export of Scotland is brains”. The Scots were oppressed. But they were fierce Protestants which meant there were no religious constraints on independent thought or scientific exploration and they knew that education was the key to escape and prosperity. A huge number of Scots over the centuries left Scotland either with qualifications or to get them. Look up “Scottish Engineers” and see how many names you recognise.
During the time of the British Empire, no outpost was complete without Scottish engineers and scientists. Well, perhaps I exaggerate, but the idea that Scots were suspicious of education is a complete reversal of everything I know. From them I gained the view, prevailing in my family, that money without education is nothing.
Being Scottish is different from Soots-Irish. The latter having been exported to Irish “plantations” in order to export the trouble makers and counter the Irish Catholic, a strategy that counts as one of the most counter-productive strategies in history. The history of the Scots-Irish in America isn’t piffle, it is well documented and often widely advertised that those who take pride in their heritage, regardless of what others may think.
After “the Forty Five” (1745), the Scots changed dramatically and became signigicant contributors to science, the arts, economics and politics. Scots were instrumental in spreading the Britsh Empire to it’s maximum extent. Many major inventions and economic adventures are associated with Scots including those who came to America.
In spite of the expansion of Scots into main stream and high level British culture, many a Scot today still hates the English and is contemptous of English lore.