As the health care reform debate heads into its final days, the Republican opposition is turning on the sick themselves. This week, the right-wing echo chamber blasted an 11 year old boy whose mother passed away due to lack of health insurance. And a day after the conservative blogosphere protested that Obama insurance reform case study Natoma Canfield might yet receive charity from the prestigious Cleveland Clinic, furious Tea Party activists in Washington taunted a man suffering from Parkinson's disease. Apparently, the Republican Party that believes "no American is denied health care in America" because "you just go to an emergency room" is sick and tired of the sick and tired.
And that fury includes children. Echoing the 2007 slandering of then 12 year-old SCHIP recipient Graeme Frost, Michelle Malkin, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and company are now targeting 11 year old Marcelas Owens.
As Media Matters detailed, Owens' mother Tiffany "died of pulmonary hypertension in 2007 at age 27 after losing her health insurance because she could no longer work." But because the former Jack in the Box manager was active with the Washington Community Action Network, the right-wing hate machine opened fire. While Glenn Beck asked liberal activists, "where were you when Marcelas' mother was vomiting blood?" and "where was grandma?" For her part, Malkin reprised her Frost character assassination by attacking the "new, dubious poster boy for Demcare." Marcelas Owens, she insisted, was no "insurance abuse survivor":

"Never mind that there is not a shred of evidence that any health insurer ever 'abused' Marcelas. Never mind that the family has made no claim that Marcelas himself has survived without insurance."

As for Rush Limbaugh, he had a simple message for young Marcelas:

"Your mom would have still died, because Obamacare doesn't kick in until 2014."

Of course, back in 2006, Limbaugh reached a new low by making fun of Michael J. Fox and his ever-worsening symptoms from Parkinson's Disease. On Tuesday, Limbaugh's tea bagging acolytes followed him into the gutter by mocking a Parkinson's victim in the streets of our nation's capital. As ThinkProgress summarized the disgraceful episode:

Activists staged "competing rallies" outside of Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy's (D-OH) district office yesterday, in a noisy, often confrontational attempt to influence the undecided congresswoman's vote. At one point, a man with a sign saying he has Parkinson's disease and needs help sat down in front of the reform opponents. Several protesters mocked the man, calling him a "communist," with one derisively "throwing money at him." "If you're looking for a handout you're in the wrong end of town," another man said.

(That performance was par for the course for a Tea Party movement which previously hecked one woman in a wheelchair and another whose daughter-in-law died because she didn't have health insurance.)
Ironically, Limbaugh himself is a poster child for blue state health care. When he was hospitalized recently with chest pains, he luckily found himself in Hawaii. Lucky, that is, because Barack Obama's home state not only ranks second among all 50 states for health care quality and access. As the New York Times reported, "Since 1974, Hawaii has required all employers to provide relatively generous health care benefits to any employee who works 20 hours a week or more," adding, "If health care legislation passes in Congress, the rest of the country may barely catch up."
But if Rush Limbaugh literally has the good fortune to receive great medical care, Ohioan Natoma Canfield wasn't so lucky. As President Obama revealed this week, breast cancer survivor Canfield dropped her insurance policy when her premiums doubled to $8500 a year, only to then contract Leukemia. With the eyes of the nation on the high-profile Cleveland Clinic's care of the even higher-profile Natoma Canfield, its executive director of patient financial services Lyman Sornberger was confident that the indigent Canfield won't lose her home. As Fox News crowed:

"She may be eligible for state Medicaid ... and/or she will be eligible for charity (care) of some form or type. ... In my personal opinion, she will be eligible for something," he said, adding that Canfield should not be worried about losing her home.
"Cleveland Clinic will not put a lien on her home," he said.

But as the New York Times reported:

Obama is not wrong in saying that a patient in Canfield's situation might have to choose between her home and health care, said Eileen Sheel, a spokeswoman for Cleveland Clinic.
''But this patient is probably not the best example of someone in that situation, although we've have patients in that situation who haven't yet qualified for Medicaid, or didn't have the resources'' to pay for care, Sheel said.

Nevertheless, Gateway Pundit led the right-wing blogosphere in rejoicing that thanks to some combination of Medicaid and/or the Cleveland Clinic's own $99 million annual charitable fund Canfield might be rescued from financial disaster:

"It Figures... Obama's Rally Prop 'Natoma Canfield' Qualifies For Financial Aid; Is Patient At Top US Cancer Center; Won't Lose Home."

As for the Medicaid program which may yet save Natoma Canfield's house, the Republican leadership in Congress has been clear in making its disdain known. Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander, now at the forefront of Republican opposition the Democratic health care reform, repeatedly used the GOP dog-whistle "ghetto" to describe:

"A medical ghetto called Medicaid that none of us, or any of our families, would ever want to be a part of for our health care."

And so it goes. This week, every single Republican member of the House will vote on the Senate health care bill. Apparently, their scorched-earth opposition to President Obama is more important than the addressing the symptoms of the death spiral of the American health care system. Numbers like 50 million uninsured, 25 million more uninsured, 98,000 deaths annually from medical errors, 45,000 deaths to lack of insurance, 62% of personal bankruptcies due to medical costs, 1 in 5 Americans postponing needed medical care and 94% of health insurance markets nationwide are already virtually monopolized. Or that employer-provided insurance now covers less than 60% of Americans while the average annual cost of family health insurance premiums will rise from $13,000 now to $22,000 by 2019. Or that Republican red states have the worst the health care systems and the unhealthiest residents.
Or judging from their hateful rhetoric, Republicans and their conservative amen corner are just sick and tired of the sick and tired.