Who, ME?
Wausau Daily Herald: IRMA - A state lawmaker from Lincoln County who once opposed a bill that would force insurers to cover chemotherapy pills says she changed her position after she learned she has cancer.
Mary Czaja, R-Irma, the state representative for the 35th Assembly District, said her view on the bill - which could take effect next year - began to change in January. That’s when she began her own battle with stage 3 breast cancer.
“I’m not a big mandate person,” said Czaja, who spent the bulk of her career in the insurance industry. “After a long conversation with my doctor, I started to think about the issue in a new way. It’s not just the affordability factor; it’s about helping people get back to normal and get back to work.”
IOW, it just didn’t occur to Czaja before that people with cancer might need help to “get back to normal and get back to work.”
Or at least, their pain wasn’t real to her. Not like it is now.
Compassion is not something to be doled out like cookies in a cookie jar. I can have sympathy for Ms. Czaja and still have sympathy for the many, many cancer patients whose agony was exacerbated by her earlier opposition to the coverage of chemo pills.
But it’s hard to look at her about-face without noticing the utter self-interest it illustrates. Czaja has a history as an insurance industry lobbyist and shill. She is quoted as saying back in 2012 that the uninsured should cut back on “fun time” in order to pay for insurance, as though the uninsured were uninsured because they were blowing premium money on visits to Disneyland.
Even her comments in the wake of her diagnosis reveal more than she apparently realizes about her attitude towards the sick. “It’s about helping people get back to normal and get back to work,” she says.
The chemo pill can make terminal cancer patients more comfortable, and extend their lives by a few months, giving them and their family more time for closure. Normalcy and work for these people are not in the cards. Do they count?
“Despite the pain, nausea and exhaustion,” the article tells us, “Czaja has found new determination to fight for other cancer patients struggling to pay for potentially lifesaving treatment.”
NEW determination? As though this were a courageous extension of her longstanding crusade for the sick? Please. Czaja, by her own admission, thought cancer wasn’t something she had to worry about. She has a history of lobbying for the health insurance industry at the expense of sick people in her state.
I have no doubt that the shift between “it can’t happen to me” and “it HAS happened to me” is both seismic and painful, but that shouldn’t be what’s required for the average human to grasp the suffering of other human beings.
I hope Mary Czaja survives her cancer. I hope she does it at home and not as an elected official. Her constituents can’t afford to sit around waiting for her to suffer yet another personal trauma that will open up yet another unexplored region of fellow feeling.
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Mary Czaja, R-Irma, the state representative for the 35th Assembly District, said her view on the bill - which could take effect next year - began to change in January. That’s when she began her own battle with stage 3 breast cancer.
“I’m not a big mandate person,” said Czaja, who spent the bulk of her career in the insurance industry. “After a long conversation with my doctor, I started to think about the issue in a new way. It’s not just the affordability factor; it’s about helping people get back to normal and get back to work.”
IOW, it just didn’t occur to Czaja before that people with cancer might need help to “get back to normal and get back to work.”
Or at least, their pain wasn’t real to her. Not like it is now.
Compassion is not something to be doled out like cookies in a cookie jar. I can have sympathy for Ms. Czaja and still have sympathy for the many, many cancer patients whose agony was exacerbated by her earlier opposition to the coverage of chemo pills.
But it’s hard to look at her about-face without noticing the utter self-interest it illustrates. Czaja has a history as an insurance industry lobbyist and shill. She is quoted as saying back in 2012 that the uninsured should cut back on “fun time” in order to pay for insurance, as though the uninsured were uninsured because they were blowing premium money on visits to Disneyland.
Even her comments in the wake of her diagnosis reveal more than she apparently realizes about her attitude towards the sick. “It’s about helping people get back to normal and get back to work,” she says.
The chemo pill can make terminal cancer patients more comfortable, and extend their lives by a few months, giving them and their family more time for closure. Normalcy and work for these people are not in the cards. Do they count?
“Despite the pain, nausea and exhaustion,” the article tells us, “Czaja has found new determination to fight for other cancer patients struggling to pay for potentially lifesaving treatment.”
NEW determination? As though this were a courageous extension of her longstanding crusade for the sick? Please. Czaja, by her own admission, thought cancer wasn’t something she had to worry about. She has a history of lobbying for the health insurance industry at the expense of sick people in her state.
I have no doubt that the shift between “it can’t happen to me” and “it HAS happened to me” is both seismic and painful, but that shouldn’t be what’s required for the average human to grasp the suffering of other human beings.
I hope Mary Czaja survives her cancer. I hope she does it at home and not as an elected official. Her constituents can’t afford to sit around waiting for her to suffer yet another personal trauma that will open up yet another unexplored region of fellow feeling.
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