Melanie Shouse’s traveling billboard is pictured at left.
Cancel that memorial service for Melanie Shouse next Sunday afternoon. She doesn’t deserve all the hoopla because, as several right wing bloggers have made clear, all she did was make a really, really stupid mistake in putting off a visit to the doctor when she found a lump on her breast.
Gateway pundit (ht: St. Louis Activist Hub) berates her for not getting one of the free breast exams offered by St. Anthony Hospital.
It’s just too bad this woman didn’t call St. Anthony’s Hospital in St. Louis. They offer free breast exams to women who are in need of assistance. I suppose that’s Bush’s fault, too.
Yeah, Melanie. Why didn’t you do that? Oh wait. She’s gone, and we can’t ask her. But she’d probably offer some lame excuse like not knowing about that program. You know how those damn libruls are. They never get the right information, and then they try to blame somebody else for their own stupidity.
Another right winger, Flopping Aces, criticizes Melanie for choosing to open a new business rather than pay for her high deductibles.
[I]nstead of going to the doctor she instead dumped 30 grand into a business, one third of that could of [sic] paid the alleged deductible, then who is at fault here?
Not only does he have run on sentences, he has the chronology wrong. She spent thirty thou to open her new business and later, when her credit cards were maxed out, got sick. But let’s not nitpick. Surely you can see his point. She gambled with her life by not seeing a doctor. Yes, she would have faced bankruptcy by doing so, but, I mean, better bankrupt than dead, right?
She took a gamble and loss [sic]. It’s sad. But to twist and spin this as if Socialism would of [sic] saved this woman’s life is absurd.
The wingoverse is out of patience with “Socialists” always whining that citizens of other countries don’t face the dire choice that Melanie did. The rightwing attitude is, get over it. She didn’t live in France; she lived in the good ole U.S.A. Melanie ought to have just admitted that the whole sad story was her own fault. We live in this great free country which offers excellent health care to … well, quite a few of us. Just thank the Almighty that we have the privilege of making our own decisions. Too bad she made the wrong one.
End of story. And shut up about health care reform.
Previous coverage of the Melanie Shouse story:
Late healthcare activist Melanie Shouse tells her story
President Obama on Melanie Shouse: “How can I say to her, ‘You know what, we’re giving up’?”