"After Sandy," Rob Delaney

ABC News coverage of the NYU hospital evacuation, via Gothamist

Rob Delaney, writing about those babies rescued by first responders from a hospital in New York City that lost power during Superstorm Sandy:

As I looked at these pictures of the babies being evacuated, I had a depressing thought. What are the financial situations of these babies’ parents? Are they poor? Do they have insurance? Are they on Medicaid? Medicaid is a health program that pays for medical services for those who cannot afford them. It is jointly funded by the federal and state governments. In some ways, I’d be happy if you were learning this information for the first time right now; the reason being that you don’t have to rely on Medicaid. Regardless, I suspect that if you had some “Medicaid” in your pocket last night, you’d have gladly given it to these precious babies to ensure their health and safety. It’s a good thing. If one of those babies were poor, I don’t suspect you’d want to punish her because her dad got laid off from his manufacturing job or because leukemia killed her older brother and bankrupted her parents just in time for her birth. If you don’t like these examples, tough shit; they’re how people get poor in the United States of America in 2012. I don’t want you to like them. 

Read the rest: "After Sandy" (robdelaney.tumblr.com)

• [BarBarSeven]

  This is great.  Obama is visiting Chris Christie in New Jersey tomorrow. Chris Christie has now praised Obama. Take a hint everyone who doesn’t get it yet.

  • [blissfulight]

    Well that’s because Obama is choppering in a load of subways for Governor Sandwiches.  

  • [Royal]

    yeah

  • [EH]

    That’s just Christie distancing himself from the current Republican machine. 
    “Heyyyy buddy! Heckuva storm, eh? What’s say we go get a creamed chipped beef down at the Silver Diner and talk about how much I love FEMA.” 

  • [J. Brad Hicks]

    The political-economic equivalent of “there are no atheists in foxholes” is “there are no Tea Partiers in a disaster zone.”

    • [mark]

      +5 Truth

  • [SedanChair]

    First shot fired in the GOP Civil War of 2013

    • [acerplatanoides]

      Not a Cold War….. it’s more of a ‘clammy’ war

  • [acerplatanoides]

     Christie refused the FIRST pile of ‘fix-and-modernize-your-trains’ money.

    What are the odds he will do that now?

• [Tavie]

  In 1979, my twin sister and I were born 2 months premature, and I spent the first few weeks of my life in the NICU at Lenox Hill Hospital. When we were babies, our parents took advantage of the WIC program, as my parents were both hard-working but not-highly-paid civil servants and the program ensured they could get us nutritious food at a crucial stage in our development. In short, I would not be here, were it not for access to health care (thanks to the excellent benefits provided to NY State employees at that time) and government assistance programs. There’s nothing more vital to producing a healthy, capable citizenry than this.

  • [creesto]

     Whoah: you guys freeloaded on gubmint assitance? I expect your family is now scamming the system and will do so for many future generations to come!! Let em all eat dirt, I say! This is ‘Murica where We all Done-ed It Ourselves!! Yur a commie bastard!!

• [tracieoh]

  It’s funny how those that speak out in favor of government programs are starting to resemble the old silent majority, namely in how they’re daring to speak out against popular opinion. It’s really about connecting the dots, not just pulling heartstrings with stories about babies. Nothing wrong with babies, but a Rep plan would take care of babies, even if it endangers the mother. Everyone else would have the “freedom” to choose their health care in an overpriced “market.”

  I really wish Mr. Delaney, hell everyone else speaking out in favor of Medicaid, Medicare, etc., would stop explaining so much, and come out boldly supporting strong gov’t programs, a la the tone in “Same Love.” Not out of guilt (as Reps practice and preach) but due to the fact that doing so makes sense. It makes sense to provide basic healthcare for all versus paying expensive ER bills, risking pandemics, etc. 

  I hate being “guilted” into supporting something with my tax dollars, wars are a good example. But I can support paying into a pool for healthcare for a better price, because diseases don’t know borders, and a sickly population is easier to defeat. Call it a version of the virtue of selfishness if you want. I’ll take that over emotional blackmail any day.

  • [Ernest Valdemar]

     Step 1: Remove the income cap on FICA.

    Step 2: Extend basic Medicare to every US citizen.

    Step 3: Where to begin? Basic health care for every American. People are no longer chained to large corporate employers, so entrepreneurship can flourish, and wages can go up for those who chose to stay with corporations, no longer saddled with healthcare costs. Insurance companies can get fat off of coverage for things like private rooms and voluntary procedures. And the whole thing will cost less in terms of public spending than our current system of forcing uninsured people to go to the emergency room instead of seeking preventative care. My plan would enable lots of people to make obscene amounts of money. In short . . . Profit!

    What blows my mind is that universal health care is a small-c conservative win, and Medicare is a distinctly American alternative to European and non-Western models, but removing the cap on FICA and extending Medicare to all citizens is somehow not on the f*cking table.

    • [creesto]

       I like the way you think, Ernest

• [J. Brad Hicks]

  “If one of those babies were poor, I don’t suspect you’d want to punish her because her dad got laid off from his manufacturing job or because leukemia killed her older brother and bankrupted her parents just in time for her birth.” I don’t share his optimism about that. I think that that is exactly what a solid third to half of Republican voters want to do: kill off the babies, to punish the parents for being poor. Not to mention kill off as many of those babies as possible, because they don’t want high-density cities like New York or Newark to exist in the first place, and are angry that they occasionally lose national elections to people who live in places like that; the more future Democratic voters die in hurricanes, the happier they are. You think I’m being unfairly mean spirited? A buddy of mine overheard two of ‘em, here in Missouri, sitting at the next table at lunch, hoping that the death toll in the major cities would be high enough to swing the election to Romney.

  Forgive me if I mention this too often, but in his book /Were You Born on the Wrong Continent?/, Thomas Geoghegan said that German social democrats asked him what America’s actual plan was for the 73% of us over the age of 25 who’ve never finished college and never will, how we plan to provide even the minimum necessities of life to people who aren’t computer programmers and doctors and lawyers and stock brokers and so forth, and expressed shock and horror that we just plain don’t have one. Well, we do have one. You’re seeing that plan in action, when Tea Partiers call disaster assistance unconstitutional and communist: that plan is for babies to die, preferably by the hundreds of thousands. America post-Reagan: “Every man for himself and the Devil take the hindmost.” Our plan is human sacrifice. Because, as people keep refusing to believe me when I say it but it’s true, the true god of America is Moloch.

  • [mark]

    Ouch. It has to be said, thank you for saying. I feel like I’m going to lose some formerly close friends after this election for saying things like this to them. WTF is wrong with Americans… Wish it wasn’t so difficult to move to Canada.

    • [acerplatanoides]

      We are a bullied people. From grade school to the grave.

  • [Michael Rosefield]

    I hope your friend was let off with a caution after punching those two men.