Title: Digby GOP health plan: People could die and that's OK
Headings: GOP Health Plan: 'People Could Die and That's OK'
GOP Health Plan: 'People Could Die and That's OK'
It’s time to call the right-wing’s free-market health care approach what it is: a death trap for the non-rich
By HEATHER DIGBY PARTON
From The Progressive Populist, March 1, 2015

Content: Basically, MediaMatters.org reported, they are challenging the the definition of modern medicine itself: Fox News Radio host Tom Sullivan told a caller who said she suffered from bipolar disorder that her illness is “something made up by the mental health business” and just “the latest fad.” When the caller told Sullivan that she “would not be alive today” if she hadn’t received mental health treatment, Sullivan wondered if “maybe somebody’s talked you into feeling and thinking this way.” Sullivan, who is also a frequent Fox Business contributor and guest anchor, began his Jan. 28 program by complaining that people with mental illness have figured how to “game the system” by receiving disability benefits. “ They’re mostly government employees and they know how to do it,” he added. Sullivan also defended Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-Ky.) controversial and false statement that “Over half the people on disability are either anxious or their back hurts.” Obviously, that is nonsense. But it’s becoming quite common on the right to suggest that illnesses are not real, that people are faking them anyway and that those who are sick are lazy parasites who should find some way to make a living. We have Republicans, some of them medical doctors, publicly declaring that fellow citizens who have been unlucky enough to have an accident or contract a debilitating illness need to be harshly scrutinized by the government to ensure they aren’t stealing that generous $1,000 a month.