The Republican senator said something yesterday that struck me as asinine, then infuriating, and ultimately both. He called my BFP’s healthcare plan, “the first step in destroying the best healthcare system the world has ever known.”

Senator Shelby? Fuck you. Not because you’re a Republican or because you’re from Alabama, but because I live in New York City. I’ve been to emergency rooms in Manhattan more times than anyone should ever have to. I’ve seen the misery on people’s faces at 2 in the morning. I’ve spent months (at two different points in my life) begging Oxford to let me take the medicine that I’ve used for years and not be a guinea pig just to see if they can give me something cheaper.

I’ve seen the horrors that my wife has had (and continues) to go through just to get treatment for the cancer she was diagnosed with. Which they wouldn’t have found if they hadn’t removed the thyroid that they discovered was crushing her windpipe. Which Teresa has complained of for roughly a decade or two with each one telling her it was nothing to worry about.

They might not have been so blase if they thought her insurance carrier would approve the tests necessary to properly diagnose her without fighting tooth and nail to save a buck. Or maybe they would. Or maybe, in Alabama, everyone is healthy and there’s just no need for fancy medical what have yous, and that’s because of you, Dick, and I should kneel to your infinite wisdom. Or maybe, as you read this, your neighbor is defecating on your driveway.

Shelby further warned (on Fox News Sunday, don’tcha know) that a government plan that would compete with private insurers “can destroy the marketplace for health care, and it will be a mistake, and the American people better be careful in what they want.”

Fuck you, Dick. I read these quotes on page 12 of today’s “paper.”

On page 16, there was a story about Todd Johnson, 42. He was in diabetic shock (though he didn’t realize he was diabetic) and was rushed to Interfaith Hospital and placed on a gurney and ignored for seven hours.

Well, ignored is a harsh word. He passed in and out of consciousness and tried to leave and get help elsewhere TWICE. Each time, he’d collapse outside and get brought back in by security. Put on the gurney. Not given insulin. Not given a glass of water despite obvious signs of dehydration. Just put in the corner to be dealt with later.

He was a co-owner of Bed-Stuy’s Le Starving Artiste Cafe. He had a loving family. And in March of 2006, he died on a stretcher because his insurance wasn’t as good as someone else’s. Because unlike my wife, he didn’t have someone by his side, demanding that someone actually LOOK AT HIM.

Remember that woman at Kings County Hospital? The one who waited in the ER for roughly A DAY before keeling over and dying? The one who was also completely ignored by staff as she withered away, alone in a crowded room?

And you have the nerve to tell me that I don’t want the marketplace for health care to be destroyed, you miserable shit? I should be concerned that Pfizer might not be able to charge people $40/pill for medicine they might need to live? Are you kidding me?

In all seriousness, I hope that members of your family who aren’t covered by what I’m sure is your full-coverage senatorial plan have need of doctors in an immediate way. I hope that your flippant attitude hits a brick wall when you hear your grandchild weeping into the phone that no one is bothering to look at her sick infant. That all they do is insist she fill out paperwork. That they need to get confirmation from her plan and it will take hours for an approval, which she might not get. I hope your epiphany chokes you into a lucid coma where your testicles constantly itch and you can only shed tears and soil linens.

What my wife and I have had to deal with in the last year is despicable. And we HAVE insurance. Oh, it’s costing us enough money each year to have a second smaller apartment, but it’s better than most other plans out there.

But the system is horribly broken. Possibly irreparably. The insurance companies aren’t going to voluntarily lower their rates. They’ll keep raising them (bigger profit margin, you see. Makes the stockholders who benefit from our infirmities reeeeeeeal happy, you see.) and we’ll beg to pay them. Because we don’t want to end up on a gurney in a corner begging for help.

Congratulations on your induction into the Hall of Fame for Jerks, Dick.

And look who’ll be waiting for you in Hell! Your old pal, Saddam!

Are you… holding hands with Mr. Hussein, Dick? Does anyone in Alabama know about this? Or evolution?