What a testament to the Libertarian creed, which abhors the idea of universal health care. This loyal, passionate man who died too young left his family a debt of $400,000 in medical bills. And who knows whether he put off getting treatment for the pneumonia that killed him because he was uninsured.
Kent Snyder did some amazing work on the Ron Paul Campaign and as remembered as a "libertarian giant"- by Lew Rockwell, on libertarian site, Lew Rockwell.com.
The Wall Street journal reports that Kent, more than anyone else, persuaded Ron Paul to run for president. And Kent, according the the WSJ said, "ultimately became a $35 million operation with 250 employees that helped deliver more than one million votes for the Texas congressman's bid in the Republican nominating contest."
Ron Paul posted this message about Snyder on his website: ""Like so many in our movement, Kent sacrificed much for the cause of liberty, Kent poured every ounce of his being into our fight for freedom. He will always hold a place in my heart and in the hearts of my family."
Sadly, the Libertarian heart apparently does not include health care. The poor guy raised tens of millions of dollars and couldn't afford the $300-$600 a month that COBRA medical insurance would have cost.
Paul has some good ideas -- get out of Iraq, get the US out of a lot of other countries. But his opposition to government, to universal health care-- these ideas just don't work and his campaign manager's death makes a tragic example of it.
A website has been created to help raise the $400,000 to pay the medical bills.
crossposted from OpEdNews.com
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$400,000 to me sounds like poor Kent Snyder got gouged by his hospital. I gave a small donation because he is a fellow patriot, but I didn't give more because I have no proof that this is not a hospital rip-off.
R.I.P Kent Snyder. You will be missed.
The outlandish prices in the American health care system are caused by government regulation. 40 years ago, medical treatment was affordable, and insurance was needed for only the most extreme tragedies; it wasn't needed for routine checkups as it is today.
If you think socialized health care is the answer, visit a veterans hospital, or talk to any retired American that has to deal with Medicare. That's right, at age 65 the government FORCES you on socialized health care. It's called Medicare. So unless you're one of the ruling elite who can pay for care out of pocket, when you retire you will finally realize your dream of socialized health care and see how wonderful it really is.
I live in Sweden, seen by the outside world as a shining example of socialized medicine. But the truth is far different from what you are told. Universal health care is just an empty promise. People are denied care all the time, and those who get it often have to wait and wait and wait. For every story you have about an American with a huge hospital bill, I have one about a Swede who was denied care, or had to go to the VETERINARIAN for an x-ray, or had to wait 6 weeks to get a tendon reattached. I, myself, have an aquaintance who's 4 year old child died because the overcrowded ER didn't take them seriously and sent them home without an examination.
The outlandish prices were caused by the insurance industry. Providers have a much easier time collecting gobs of money from insurance companies than from individuals. They get a steady stream of income and they are in cahoots with the companies although everyone involved makes it look like there's friction.
That's partially true, but if you look closer at the reasons, it's due to government intervention on all sides; it's not just a case of greedy insurance companies as you've depicted.
Check this out for starters: http://mises.org/story/369
This is an advertisement more for Life Insurance than it is for Universal Health Care.
Universal health care is the only system that works. The only way we will ever get it will be if everyone cancels their private insurance and bankrupts the present system.
Angelatc says the family is not responsible for the $400K.
That $14K raised so far (on the website linked in the article) should come in very handy to the family.
These paulistas are enterprising, even if they do need a break at 4:20.
There is no good reason that pneumonia should cost $400,000. ("Yes, it does!" is the answer to an entirely different question, by the way.)
If Snyder had asked for help, he would have received it. He apparently preferred to keep his illness private.
I read that Snyder had a pre-existing condition. Perhaps he died because he was sick, and not having insurance had absolutely nothing to do with the care that he received.
He was receiving hospital care, including an extended stay in ICU, would lend credence to the theory that there are programs out there to care for people. He wasn't turned away to die in the street, although I suspect many of you wish he had been, so you could make a point that doesn't exist at this juncture.
And for the record, medical bills do not fall to the family. They fall to the estate. I might be wring, but I believe Snyder was single. If he had life insurance, the proceeds are exempt from estate liens.
What you're really insisting that even though the country is 9.4 TRILLION dollars in debt this year alone, taxpayers need to spend more money to ensure for-profit hospitals and pharmaceutical corporations get more of our money.
Libertarians are quite happy to take care of ourselves. We are willing to live with the consequences of our decisions. You're free to have all the insurance you want, but making us pay for it is simply slavery.
Who gets to pay for "those programs" the slaves?Europe canada and japan all have better health care thats much cheaper and everone is covered and those "slaves" seem pretty satisfied with it,they are democracies after all..slave democracies!
That $400,000.00 is going to trickle down to the tax payers. It will result in higher medical costs for us all. There is no such thing as free health care. Emergency room care is the most expensive care you can get besides life support. Put the two together and the cost can be astronimical.
I do agree that "for-profit" hospitals is a big part of the health care problem. But it's what we've go and I haven't heard anyone saying that we should do away with that system.
You said it yourself. There's no such thing as free health care.
Government programs killed the not-for-profit hospitals, by the way.
I got my own health insurance for $50.00 a month
Go to www.ehealthinsurance.com
Maybe some people should forgo their cable bills and lattes for insurance
libertarians are the ones who are republicans who hate government and want NO HELP, each man for himself darwinism.Most of the ones I know arw bitter single guys who resent having to pay for other peoples kids education and social security ect...ectThis sadly is a fitting end to one who espouses this philosophy..
That's not true.
We're happty to have help, but we don't want to force people into giving us their money. That's making slaves of other people, and our morals are set higher than that.
We're not greedy and self-centered.
Slaves are people who are bought and sold like cattle with no power or choice.Having to pay taxes is not slavery it is the obligation of citizenship.Maybe you cant see the moral difference?
Part of the whole neocon plan is that charity would take the place of government social programs, thus the Office of Faith Based Initiatives. So in practice these supposed Libertarians are betraying their own philosophy, by virtue of which Snyder's family ought to suck it up and pay off their own debts, penny by penny if necessary.
The neocon plan is to let Halliburton run health care.
It looks a lot like the socialist's plan.
Libertarians would let people choose for themselves.
Land of the free and all that.... ring any bells?
And when they get sick and have to go to the hospital{I know it never happens to libertarians}and they have no insurance who gets to pay??My libertarian freind had testicular cancer which because he didnt see a doctor for years despite pain, had spread to his spine,he had surgery and chemo and is now living on S.S.I. because he can no longer work.Who gets to pay for all that??Do you people really think the europeans and japanese are slaves?The canadians?Slaves??WOW!!
Ron Paul should go home now.
He is an M.D.! Why was he not paying his Campaign Manager enough to afford medical insurance? This incident just points out that Paul should never run for political office again.
He should just stay home and treat the people who can afford his services - which would be mostly women - since his specialty is OB/GYN.
His purpose in life is to free the slaves.
How do you know he wasn't? For all you know he was, and the insurance got maxed out. That does happen, you know.
Don't jump to conclusions in the absence of facts.
So let me get this straight: If you lean far to the right you are a Libertarian, but if you lean far to the left, you are an Anarchist.
Not exactly. Visit the site http://www.politicalcompass.org and take the test to see where your beliefs lie. they propose a horizontal "left vs right" axis and a vertical "libertarian vs authoritarian" axis. I ended up in the "left-libertarian" quadrant, for example, where I bet most of the people on Huffington Post would be also. We believe in the same personal freedoms and civil liberties, but also in proper government controls and regulation with teeth on markets and businesses. The Libertarians of the "Libertarian Party" are right-leaning libertarians who like free markets. Point of consensus: both of us abhor authoritarians. A unified libertarian movement would be good for this country.
Not exactly, either. The idea of "The Libertarians in the LP" being right-leaning libertarians who like free markets is bogus, and shows a lack of understanding. What you see are right-libertarians who like civil liberties, and left-libertarians that like free markets. Put together, we are the centrists that like both free markets and civil liberties, and that combination is ONLY possible with limited government.
I don't think so. You can be an anarchist on any side rebelling against the status quo. But lean far enough to the right your a facist - to the left your a communist. Those are names they love to call. Of course communism had its day and died. Facism is just too easy to spot so we can nip that in the bud. They will think up more names just as vile in the future.
Wow. You have no idea what you are even talking about.
Anarchy is no-government.
Socialism is the marriage of government with the means of production (i.e., the state owns the farms, factories, machines, etc).
Communism the marriage of government with all property (i.e., the state owns everything).
Fascism (a.k.a. corporatism, per Mussolini) is the marriage of government with corporate hierarchies (i.e. unelected corporate bodies, whether business, professional, or special interests who govern the people)...
I don't know about you, but it sure sounds to me that based on the above definitions, fascism is alive and well in America.
So much for nipping it in the bud when its spotted.
Libertarians believe in a limited government only. Anarchists do not believe in any central authority (anarchy-an==without. Archon=Ruler). Communism (Marxism) is the "withering away of the State". Socialism is supposed to be on the road to communism, using a strong central authority to distribute resources and teach people how to become communists. . A Fascist government uses mass movements as a way to re-organize society according to a mythical golden age in the past. This differs from authoritarian governments who want much, but not always complete ,control over the citizenry but do not care about re-enacting a golden age. It is nice to know that the US could never become a Fascist state because there is no mythical golden age to recreate. (Mussolini wanted to recreate the ancient Roman Empire, The Nazis wanted to recreate the Age of the Teutonic Knight).
Libertarians baffle me. I see them as Republicans who want to get stoned a lot and don't want guvmint interfering with their personal habits. (At least this is how the libertarians I know personally seem to operate.) They are conservatives without the hypocritical moral posturing. These are a group of people who seem to desperately want to make life harder for themselves and to take everyone else along for the ride. Luckily this is why they remain fringe.
This story, however, is beyond tragic. I had pneumonia about 10 years ago and had myself treated at one of those drop-in Urgent Care centers. I drove myself there and back...but I got the medication I needed and the x-rays and was able to recover at home. Ok, I was young and healthy. But still. This guy was only a few years older than I am now and his death in this day and age was a totally avoidable tragedy.
I hope all these people who feel that health care and the social safety net are frills we do not need will take a moment to think about this. Do you really want to lose friends and family in the prime of their life to treatable illnesses?
Then how about making an effort to learn more about them instead of adhering to the stereotypes that partisans perpetuate?
You know whoelse adheres to stereotypes? Racists...
Do you really want, intellectually, to act like a racist?
"Republicans who want to get stoned a lot" is a direct Thom Hartmann line of BS.
You are right, a libertarain life is harder. But it's harder because of that little pesky thing called "growing up and being responsible for yourself", something the infantile authoritarians, statists, socialists, etc. never learned.
So enjoy the kindergarten government philosophies while you can. The growing up will be harsh for you, and it's coming soon. Are you ready for it? Probably not.
Maybe we should be asking Why it costs $400,000 to treat Pneumonia. WTF??
It is because we have a FOR PROFIT health system.We as americans pay more than anyone in the world for healthcare and get the least in return.In france where i lived they have doctors who make housecalls! and its more efficient and cheaper than the emergency room.When was the last time you heard of a housecall in america!
Posted July 6, 2008 | 07:31 PM (EST)