What do you call someone who clings to his ideological purity even if it means others will literally suffer for it? You call that person, let’s see … Osama bin Laden. Or Mao. Or maybe Jim DeMint. That’s it: Jim DeMint, the Tea-hadist. The junior senator from South Carolina, representative from the 1950s, and avid hair-coloring aficionado, DeMint is catching grief for sticking to his Tea Party guns rather than save U.S. taxpayers billions and help 300,000 dialysis patients.
Dr. David Cull, a vascular surgeon in Greenville, S.C., has invented a new valve system that could spare 300,000 dialysis patients across the country enormous suffering — and save American taxpayers billions of dollars in Medicare costs. When Cull applied for a $249,479 Therapeutic Discovery Grant — a part of the health care reform law designed to encourage cutting-edge biomedical research — DeMint, Cull’s hometown U.S. senator, refused to write a letter of recommendation and support for the grant. Why? Because the grant was part of “Obamacare,” which, as we all know, is evil and socialistic. Never mind that Cull’s invention is a major advance in its field and could save taxpayers a bundle. Here is an explanation of Cull’s invention and its importance, from the original McClatchy story:
Cull’s valve system would replace a plastic stent that’s been used for a half-century for patients with acute kidney failure. Once inserted under the skin, blood flows through the tiny tube all the time, even though a kidney patient undergoes dialysis only nine hours a week on average.The constant blood flow causes numerous painful complications, among them circulation impairment, clot formation, gangrene, finger ulcers and severe arm swelling. A typical dialysis patient will undergo 10 to 12 operations over a lifetime to treat the complications, with 1 million performed each year — all paid for by Medicare.
Cull, meanwhile is readying to start clinical trials with 12 patients of the new Hemoaccess Valve System. No thanks to Sen. DeMint, the Tea-hadist whose personal ideology trumps anything so practical as saving lives and tax money.
This article appears in Mar 22-28, 2011.
Hi John!
I love your articles, and I’ve been reading all week thinking, well, he’s going to address it on the 25th! I’d love to hear something from you on the T-SW Factory Fire’s 100th anniversary- incredibly relevant with the Nation’s growing obsession with Union-hunting. Thanks-t.
Good to see we’re back to calling people out by name with a photo, I’m blown away that it’s a Republican.
Refresh my memory, but weren’t there a couple of medical breakthroughs prior to the passage of Obamacare?
The only reason that the Republicans are trying to repeal the health care law is that the Democrats passed it over their objections.
If it was really about health care, they wouldn’t be calling it “ObamaCare”.
That name alone clearly demonstrates that the objection is political and it is President Obama’s support of it that angers them.
DLP, I’m sure this is news to you buy everyone calls the program in Massachusetts (that’s been a spectacular failure btw) Romneycare. He’s a Republican, not that there is any difference between the parties.
Tea Partiers = Amoral sub-humans.
DLP – still waiting on those monetary policy answers, big boy.
BV:
If you ask any person who is ranting about the evil “Obama Care” what part of it they don’t like, the only part that annoys them is the requirement that they must be insured (by a private company). The you must buy insurance is the flip side of requiring the insurance companies to sell you insurance.
Most of the rest of the Fox inspired objections are just not true.
DLP,
How are those monetary policy answers coming? What’s a Primary Dealer? What are POMO’s? What is QE? What’s the difference between M1 and M2?
We wait to share your limitless wisdom.
Hey, DLP, you better answer FOA’s dinky little quiz questions, or the guy might hurt himself out of frustration. Can’t you see he wants to brag about the Great Big Thing he knows? Kind of cruel for you to pretend he’s just some nutjob who read a magazine and wants to talk about it.
Seriously, where do these nutjobs hide during the day?
Mr. Kennedy,
Money constitutes one half of every economic transaction you partake in. By flaunting your ignorance of its nature, you play into the hands of those who manipulate it at your expense.
Nice to see that now not only does the Loaf remove comments, they now manipulate user names.
Unless you’re either Voldemort or Len (or Frank, though that’s unlikely) under another name, you have never had any posts removed. If one got trapped in our spam filter, please send us the post and we’ll be happy to add it for you, unless it’s blatantly violent (as were the deleted posts by the aforementioned folks).
As for your name, yes, we did not feel Fuck Off And Die John Grooms was an appropriate name (see violence comment above). We kept hoping you would eventually have gained enough maturity to change the name yourself, but as you never did, we did it for you. You’re welcome.
>> you have never had any posts removed
Liar.
I’m basically just having to repeat myself over and over to you, but all posts wishing death or violent acts on other readers or staffers will be deleted, including the recent one to which you presumably refer. This isn’t that hard to understand.
If you don’t agree with this editorial policy, then I suggest you go post on a right-wing site that encourages such behavior.