There was an essay in the WSJ today by Ron Johnson, a Republican Congressman in Wisconsin. I hesitate to link to it, but it has been copied in the right wing blogs as another part of their bible.

R.J. speaks of his daughter who was born with a heart defect, and survived, but it is the dishonest way he uses his own child for political gain that disgusts me, although I wouldn’t be entirely surprised to find he believes all his own words.

Specifically, he says;

I don’t even want to think what might have happened if she had been born at a time and place where government defined the limits for most insurance policies and set precedents on what would be covered. Would the life-saving procedures that saved her have been deemed cost-effective by policy makers deciding where to spend increasingly scarce tax dollars?

Now in my simplistic mind (/), I know that this is exactly what insurance companies in the USA do, for profit; and that this is very much what the health care reform is supposed to stop, or reduce.

He also says:

She wasn’t saved by a bureaucrat, and no government mandate forced her parents to purchase the coverage that saved her. Instead, her care was provided under a run-of-the-mill plan available to every employee of an Oshkosh, Wis., plastics plant.

So he had insurance, but he doesn’t say what he would advocate for those in the same situation who don’t have insurance, or could have had insurance but didn’t want to spend the money.

These people make me sick.