Who, ME?

[paft.livejournal.com]

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.


*

Comments

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Selfish bastards gonna be selfish.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

pretty much.

[paft.livejournal.com]

But they needn't have the power to kill others with their selfishness.

[fornikate.livejournal.com]

i'm shocked

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

"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. "

Unfortunately, it's too often the only way some people can see beyond their petty tribalisms and bigotries; one example is the viciously homophobic ideologue who suddenly discovers tolerance when his or her own child comes out of the closet. The gulf between ideals and ideologies and actual human beings seems very difficult for some to cross until forced to by personal circumstances that bring the reality of the human lives impacted by their attitudes home in full force. Of course, Cjaza wasn't faced with her mother or daughter being diagnosed with cancer, so one is left wondering if she'd have had such a change of heart had it not been her own life on the line...

[rick-day.livejournal.com]

Yet they do come out, don't they? Isn't that important? That people can change their mind about an issue? None of us are born with a sense of right or 'wrong', it is learned. Even adults learn and change.

When they come out on a different side is moot. The important thing is understanding that indeed, people can change, if persuaded enough.

What would you have her do, go back to her opposition to the drugs so you won't feel so uncomfortable about her changing her mind? Indeed...

[paft.livejournal.com]

I would have her issue a heartfelt and public mea culpa about her inhumane policies of the past.

That would be a nice start.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Yeah the gay thing came to my mind immediately too. I'm glad those people changed their viewpoint, but I wished they demonstrated some empathy before that point; since a lot of others are able to do it.

[rick-day.livejournal.com]

People change their positions, Paft. It actually happens. Oh it may not be *enough* change by your arbitrary scales, but it does happen.

[paft.livejournal.com]

So you're going to pretend this is just about the fact she changed her position? That's all you got?

It's not about the fact that she changed her mind. It's about the fact that she only changed her mind when her OWN life was being affected.

Anything unclear about this to you?

[rick-day.livejournal.com]

Anything unclear about this to you?

Well..it's clear that you are upset with her. I tend to not dwell on a person's past issues. I am only interested in how she grows forward as a human, and what she does with her time left.

I'm sorry, but I am not the type person who condemns someone who is in mortal danger, no matter their past.

She represented her constituency, the people who got her elected; the insurance industry who gave her $$s to get elected.

Fix that issue and you may have more mind changers. Attack the cause not the symptoms.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

What a coincidence, the OP was on that very topic!

[rick-day.livejournal.com]

yes...and?

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

The problem is our government is run by people who have no idea what they're talking about.

There's rampant anti-intellectualism so nobody wants to refer to actual experts on the topics they're forming their preconceived notions on.

We can't just sit here and wait for these idiots to have their "whoa, it's actually worse than I thought!" epiphanies.

[rick-day.livejournal.com]

Then...what should we do? I'd love an earnest answer.

And at what point do differences of opinion become moot or irrelevant?

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Walk your talk otherwise you're talking shit.

That woman was talking shit, because when it came to her own sweet pink ass being on the line, she changed her tune. This is old as dirt.

(frozen) (no subject)

[rick-day.livejournal.com]

So i take it you are not much of a forgiving person, eh? I mean, hell, how dare anyone change their position, no matter what the approved societal motivation.

OK...

[paft.livejournal.com]

For the record,

No, I don't keep "dossiers" on people. But when you post in a public forum the solution "let 'em starve," whether it's about suffering populations in famine-stricken Africa or unemployed people over 50 in America, it does rather stick in the memory.

And yes, I will bring it up in another conversation if I consider it germane.

It's called "context."

I will, however, henceforth refrain from comments about what "type person" that makes someone.

[musicpsych.livejournal.com]

I sometimes hear liberals being described as "idealistic." This example shows that conservatives can also be idealistic, but in their own ways. I don't know if it's an inability to empathize or a refusal to empathize. Or if it's their own form of exceptionalism. But it seems like a lot of conservatives believe that problems only happen to people who deserve them. And that if they themselves have problems, their experience won't be as bad.

[paft.livejournal.com]

I'm reminded of the old Oingo-Boingo song:

Why should I caaaaaare?
(Nuthin bad ever happens to me!)
Why should I caaaaaare?
(Nuthin bad ever happens to me!)

[moonshaz.livejournal.com]

And I'm reminded of an old Steve Goodman song:

...it ain't hard to get along with somebody else's troubles
And they don't make you lose any sleep at night
As long as fate is out there burstin' somebody else's bubbles
Everything is gonna be alright.

[paft.livejournal.com]

One has learned from suffering when one applies the lesson broadly -- not just to that one segment of experience that affects you.

I recently mentioned a biography of Franklin Roosevelt where the author posited that Roosevelt's experience with polio enabled him to understand that the people affected by the Depression were not suffering because they'd done something wrong. In short, Roosevelt understood that, quite frequently, bad things happen to people, not as retribution for stupidity or immorality, but from sheer bad luck.

If, however Roosevelt had only learned from his experience that "sometimes polio affects people who did nothing wrong," then, no, he would not have truly learned from his experience. It would still, at base, be all about himself and the fact that he'd caught polio.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

You're nicer than me. Be fitting for her to not get treatment. Then we'd see her walk her talk. She would have to cut back on fun time, sadly.

[rick-day.livejournal.com]

so..how would you 'legally' deny her the right to medication? In the name of 'teaching her how to walk', of course.