From the rotting bowels of the wingnut corpus


Here’s two examples of not just how far gone the average wingnut has become, but how they got there. First, the obligatory whopper:

The White House Visitors Office requires that an unborn child—still residing in utero—must be counted as a full human being when its parents register for a White House tour, according to documents obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

It’s a beautiful example of right-wing dishonesty, which is why there’s no link — I don’t want to reward that shit with a single page view. The truth, if  someone is expecting and registers for a visit in the future, around or after the due date, they can register the expected child so that there’s no security delay if and when they show up with an extra person, i.e., their baby.

This is the kind of stuff that turned me hard left against the GOP. It seems like most everything that comes out of their mouths is a trick, lately just wanton lies, often intended to fool low info voters into supporting the opposite of what they think they’re voting for. Exhibit A:

(Link) — People are protected not only from being forced to participate in abortions but from referring patients for abortion services or participating in the prescription or administration of any drug that terminates a pregnancy.

They also said it could allow a doctor to refuse to provide chemotherapy to a pregnant cancer patient because it might end her pregnancy.

The trick? The word “refer” doesn’t just mean “recommend” in this context, as in “I know a great oncologist here in town who can help you with that, tell him I sent you”. If the patient has an HMO that requires a referral from what turns out to be the local wingnut primary care physician for a specialist visit, that referral can be denied in these vague circumstances, with no consequences to the doctor or the health insurance company.

The only way around that is to get another PCP, which means scheduling a new patient appointment and that’s assuming you can find a PCP on the list who’s even taking new patients. In a typical HMO it might be days or weeks before they can get in to see the new PCP, plus another co-pay and time off from work and miles on the car etc., and measures like this usually have a neat little quiet clause keeping the patient from being able to find out ahead of time if that new doc has a record of pulling the same old crap.

It boils down to another unnecessary obstacle that can be arbitarily erected for any pregnant women, or any women the doctor thinks might be pregnant, between the patient and treatment, a delay that will in some cases cause harm or could even cause death. But like all delays and obstacles in the ugly rigged game called the US healthcare system, it could save the HMO lots and lots of money. HMO’s are so grateful for PCPs who keep their patients “healthy”and away from expensive specialists that in the past they sometimes pay that doc a year-end bonus. What an amazing coinkidink!

Wingnut voters think they’re voting for something that will reduce abortions. Agree or disagree, in their minds they’re voting for the health and life of fellow human beings. In reality they’re voting for something that will put more money into the coffers of the one percent at the expense of causing harm and possibly death for working class women who depend on shitty HMOs. But don’t you dare tell them’s there’s a conservative war on women!

Comments

  1. geraldmcgrew says

    Jay Sekulow, of ACLJ infamy, made “the White House makes you register your unborn baby for visits” one of his main subjects on today’s radio program. Their argument was that it’s hypocritical of a pro-choice administration to require pregnant women to “declare” their unborn babies when visiting the WH, because the underlying viewpoint must be a recognition that the fetus is a human life.

    When I heard it, I knew there had to be more to the story than that and that they were misrepresenting the whole thing. And sure enough….

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