THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

Now I am fully aware that your average Republican/Teabagger when in full hypocrite mode is a stranger to shame, but this one should have brought the two together. Sadly reading the story of Wisconsin Republican/Teabagger Rep. Mary Czaja also has a way of chilling compassion in the reader.

Wouldn’t we all like some compassion when confronted with a life-threatening illness? Wisconsin state representative Mary Czaja, R-Irma, just found some — for herself.

Czaja opposed a healthcare bill that would require insurance companies to cover chemotherapy pills, just as they cover the intravenous treatment. Then she had a conversion experience. She was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer in January and faces a 16-week course of chemotherapy to deal with it.

Ten years ago, the representative underwent a double mastectomy. Pre-cancerous cells were found in the milk-ducts of her left breast. The surgery was a preventative measure, meant to keep cancer from developing. But a stabbing pain in her shoulder in January was diagnosed as metastasized breast cancer.
Representative Czaja thought she was safe from cancer.

Czaja said that after the double mastectomy, she thought she was safe. She described the new pain as excruciating but said, “I never in a million years thought I had cancer.” A conversation with her doctor brought about some new thinking. She reversed her position on insurance and chemotherapy. She explained, “It’s not just the affordability factor; it’s about helping people get back to normal and get back to work.”

It’s certainly about all those things: affordability, a healthy life, getting back to normal, getting back to work. And it’s wonderful that the bill has now passed in the Wisconsin Assembly. The Assembly amended a Senate version to add some co-pays, with a cap of $100 a month. So the bill isn’t exactly overflowing with generosity. Still, it passed, 75-18. And wonder of wonders, Governor Walker has promised to sign it.

But wouldn’t it be nice if Rep. Czaja were just as enthusiastic about other women’s health issues as she is about her own particular one? According to We Are Wisconsin, she is an insurance industry insider who has a history of lobbying against affordable health care for Wisconsinites. As for the governor, Tanya Atkinson, executive director of Wisconsin’s Planned Parenthood, recently wrote about him in Milwaukee’s Journal Sentinel. She specifically took aim at his positions on women’s health:

Since 2011, Walker has authorized 11 policies that take away basic health care access from women, including unprecedented cuts for women and families in need of essential preventative and diagnostic health care such as birth control and cancer screenings.

If she did everything right, how did this happen?

But Czaja had nothing to say about that history as she opined that:

I did everything right, but still the cancer was somehow able to sneak back in. We as women can be such caretakers that we don’t take time to care for ourselves.

Yeah, Representative … people who do everything right get cancer, just like people who don’t. But everyone deserves adequate healthcare without judgement. Apparently, Czaja believes only a certain class of people deserve coverage, especially those who need to ‘get back to work’. So, good for all those people who need the same coverage Czaja does and will soon have it; too bad for those with other healthcare needs.

So she learned an important healthcare lesson, but did it stir any humanity in her coal dark soul? It is not recommended that anyone hold their breath, self-awareness is not a Republican/Teabagger virtue.