Epic Fail: Obama Tries to Play the Cancer Card

Most pundits and reporters are calling the second presidential debate in Nashville a solid win for Barack Obama, and I have to wonder if they watched the same debate I did. I’ve read tons of debate analysis, some excellent and some undeserving of linkage, and I have yet to see anyone discuss what Obama revealed about about how he treated his dying mother. In answer to Tom Brokaw’s question about whether health care in America is a privilege, right, or responsibility, Obama said:

Well, I think it should be a right for every American. In a country as wealthy as ours, for us to have people who are going bankrupt because they can’t pay their medical bills — for my mother to die of cancer at the age of 53 and have to spend the last months of her life in the hospital room arguing with insurance companies because they’re saying that this may be a pre-existing condition and they don’t have to pay her treatment, there’s something fundamentally wrong about that.

You want to know what’s really “fundamentally wrong?” Barack Obama let his dying mother spend some of her last moments arguing with insurance companies. Energy that could have been put toward fighting her monstrous disease was channeled toward navigating bureaucracy, and her son, a 34 year old “man,” couldn’t find the time or the heart to shoulder that weight for her.

This is personal for me. I was years younger than Obama when my mother lost her life to cancer, and it never occurred to me to burden her with medical bills and insurance negotiations as she lay in a hospital room receiving blood transfusions and chemotherapy treatments. I didn’t realize my mom was dying at the time, but all the same, I handled the phone calls and mail from the insurer, and I made damn sure she didn’t have to think about those things.

Why didn’t Barack Obama fight with the insurance companies on behalf of his dying mother? Was he too wrapped up in his career as a lawyer, lecturer, and author? Was it her right and not his responsibility?

Barack Obama’s callous disregard for his mother is deeply disturbing. Just as sickening is his attempt to use her suffering for political gain after he apparently did nothing to help her.

And in case you still find Obama to be a man of character, let me remind you that he saw no problem with admitting, on live television, that his mother spent her final months arguing with insurance companies. He admitted this because he doesn’t believe it reflects badly on him in any way. Blame the government, he says. Blame the system. Blame the greedy insurers. Screw that, Barack: I blame you.

Dealing with insurance companies sucks. It takes more time, effort, and mental stamina than any cancer patient should have to give. But it’s manageable by a healthy, young person working on the patient’s behalf. Tens of thousands of Americans have juggled other responsibilities to be there for their ailing loved ones, and I hope each one of those people watched the debate.

I hope they caught Obama’s revelation and found it as sickening as I did.

Published by Jenn Q. Public on October 8, 2008 at 6:27 am

Filed Under Barack Obama, Election 2008, Health care

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