Hadassah Lieberman

[Anonymous]

Appropriate or Over the Line?

Hadassah Lieberman is a global ambassador for the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation. It is unclear whether she is compensated, or volunteers. She is a two time breast cancer survivor.

Her husband, Joe, is not on board with the Senate Health Care proposals.

As a consequence of Joe's stand, Jane Hamsher, of the progressive? left? liberal? certainly not conservative? (Hamsher's website bio states: A contributor to The Huffington Post, she posts also in other liberal Websites and political magazines, such as AlterNet and The American Prospect.) Firedoglake blog is calling for the Komen foundation to dump her.

[jsteele]

Well, if being a breast cancer surviver lends credibility in this discussion, Jane is a three-time survivor. As such, she is more familiar than most with the importance of the work undertaken by the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. She has every right to express her views on this matter. That said, I don't believe in guilt by association. One could question Hadassah's involvement with the Foundation given her lobbying ties to the pharmaceutical and health insurance industry. But, I don't agree with criticizing her due to her husband's political positions. Indeed, given Jane's strong commitment to feminism, I'm surprised at her willingness to see a woman as simply an extension of her husband. Now, if Hadassah were to share Joe's opposition to expanding healthcare, I might feel differently. But, at the moment, I don't know that to be true.

[Anonymous]

I think it would send a strong message that Joe L. is a total d-bag and noone in his family should be hold up their heads when it comes to any healthcare-related issues. One in five cancer patients go bankrupt from the expensive business of staying alive (most of whom have insurance). My mom had four operations before the cancer got her and it ruined us financially (and yes, we did have insurance).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it would send a strong message that Joe L. is a total d-bag and noone in his family should be hold up their heads when it comes to any healthcare-related issues. One in five cancer patients go bankrupt from the expensive business of staying alive (most of whom have insurance). My mom had four operations before the cancer got her and it ruined us financially (and yes, we did have insurance).

While this is very sad, I am not sure what your expectation was? I imagine if your mom had insurance, that she received good care, and the bills were for co-pays, deductibles, and amounts charged in excess of UCR? When we ask "the government" to pay for things, we are really asking our neighbors to pay for things through their tax dollars. If we ask for insurance to pay ALL we are really asking for all insured to pay via higher insurance rates. There is no perfect solution.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it would send a strong message that Joe L. is a total d-bag and noone in his family should be hold up their heads when it comes to any healthcare-related issues. One in five cancer patients go bankrupt from the expensive business of staying alive (most of whom have insurance). My mom had four operations before the cancer got her and it ruined us financially (and yes, we did have insurance).

While this is very sad, I am not sure what your expectation was? I imagine if your mom had insurance, that she received good care, and the bills were for co-pays, deductibles, and amounts charged in excess of UCR? When we ask "the government" to pay for things, we are really asking our neighbors to pay for things through their tax dollars. If we ask for insurance to pay ALL we are really asking for all insured to pay via higher insurance rates. There is no perfect solution.

Well some of us think we'd rather do either of those things than have people be ruined by health care bills. It's not good for society to have people be ruined by health care disasters.