GOP congressional candidate Chris Collins knows health care is expensive these days, but he argues it’s for good reason: People are no longer dying from deadly forms of cancer.
“People now don’t die from prostate cancer, breast cancer and some of the other things,” he told The Batavian in an interview that was flagged Tuesday by City & State NY. Collins was discussing his desire to repeal Obamacare.
So I guess we can stop racing for the cure.
Hunter Gathers
Speaking of idiots, Mittens said this a few hours ago.
Flip, meet flop. Flop, meet flip.
Shalimar
Brilliant timing, saying that the same day my friend, former Raider Ben Davidson, died of prostate cancer.
Argive
Huh. And all this time I’ve been thinking that my aunt died of breast cancer six years ago. Those doctors must have lied to us.
Maude
Collins is an idiot.
Hypatia's Momma
@Argive:
Yeah, I was just thinking I could now send an email to my former neighbor: “Good news! The cancer from which your wife died wasn’t the deadly kind!”
Yutsano
@Hunter Gathers: Wibbly Wobbly Weebly Willard.
mcmullje
This is the very reason I feel like I’m drowning in stupid. How do they get away with it????
JGabriel, Statist Minded Ideologue of the Left
“… they die from Obamacare!”
ETA: You know that’s what Conservatives/Republicans are going to blame for all deaths going forward, now that the PPACA has survived SCOTUS.
.
MattF
Not necessarily stupid. Could be crazy or dishonest.
Ruckus
Been beat to it. But that won’t stop me.
Sister 4 years ago, breast cancer.
We have got to come up with a proper thing to call these completely fucking evil, insane, sociopathic assholes.
danielx
@Ruckus:
Well, you could say sociopaths and stop. That pretty much covers the rest.
msskwesq
I deeply resent this Rethug’s remarks. In the past two years my brother in law died a horrible death from prostate cancer, my best friend died of leukemia and my sister has just last month had a double mastectomy and things look tough with her cancer prognosis. What in the world is this guy thinking? Asshole.
Spaghetti Lee
Speaking of Republican dipshits, Deadbeat Joe Walsh was at my town’s 4th of July parade. The temptation to scream at him was strong, but I eventually chickened out. It’s too damn hot to get all worked up.
gelfling545
This ass was our county executive for one term. We just got rid of him in the last election. He is noted for saying really stupid and rather offensive stuff but this is a new low.
JGabriel, Statist Minded Ideologue of the Left
@Ruckus:
F.E.I.S.A?
.
Jeff(the other one)
@Shalimar: I guess I’ll have to tell my grandpa to knock it off and stop pretending to be dead then
AkaDad
If Libtards like John Cole would stop providing evidence that Republicans are sociopaths, we could discuss the issues civilly.
different-church-lady
Everyone’s missing a better point on this one: the idiot meant that you don’t automatically die from cancer nowadays. Before modern medicine, it was pretty much a given you’d die. Today people can survive it.
And the reason people can survive it? Because (wait for it)… THEY GET MEDICAL CARE FOR IT. The SAME FUCKING MEDICAL CARE YOU’RE TRYING TO PREVENT PEOPLE FROM BEING ABLE TO AFFORD, YOU MALICIOUS NITWIT!
cckids
@Spaghetti Lee:
Oy. And you never have a rotten egg when you really NEED one.
SiubhanDuinne
@MattF:
These are not mutually exclusive. But you know that.
Ruckus
@JGabriel, Statist Minded Ideologue of the Left:
Doesn’t really roll off the tongue like it deserves to. Also sounds like some bureaucratic/militaristic thing.
Asshole. No, not quite enough.
Flaming fucking asshole. Closer.
Great screaming pustule. Also.
I got it.
Republican.
cckids
@different-church-lady: Yes. And the reason most of the civilized world has better survival rates than we do? THEY HAVE UNIVERSAL CARE AND STUFF GETS CAUGHT EARLY.
Sorry for screaming. Been without insurance for 8 years now; the sure knowledge that if I get cancer I’ll die for lack of care is infuriating.
VividBlueDotty
If he has a direct line to God, which most of these crazies do, he can tell God to tell my mother she didn’t die of breast cancer. Even after spending over $10,000 a year for 10 years fighting it. And that was with GOOD insurance.
Of course I would much prefer to tell her myself. Guess I’ll have to wait till some form of cancer “doesn’t” kill me.
different-church-lady
@cckids: Worth screaming about.
Peregrinus
@gelfling545:
Was he the one known for parking in handicapped spaces and whatnot? I’m in Monroe County and that’s as much as I heard during the last election.
quannlace
Wow, these people really do live in their own universe. A happy, happy universe.
quannlace
In a twisted way, this moron is right. People usually don’t die from their cancer; it’s from complications from cancer, like pneumonia.
But what is his point? Medical care is expensive cause people get treatment and live longer?
The answer to health care costs is to just shut up and die?
donnah
The Republicans are known for their “Throw it against the wall and see what sticks” approach. No data, no facts, just say shit and walk away. They seldom get challenged, and if they do, they shrug it off and say it was taken out of context, or that the Dems said the same thing.
They do it because they can get away with it.
Interrobang
So if health care is expensive because cancer isn’t an automatic death sentence anymore, because cancer treatments are both effective and expensive…repealing Obamacare follows from that exactly how? (LODJICK. UR DOIN IT RONG.)
My mother’s post-surgical radiation burns from her breast cancer treatment are still healing up. Thank goodness for OHIP. I think the largest single expense they had to pay was the exorbitant parking at the hospital for all those outpatient procedures.
rageahol
I guess we can stop giving measles and diptheria vaccinations too, then.
JWL
Collins is the caliber of candidate that California’s GOP has backed for the past 20 years. It’s the ONLY reason republicans have lost its mojo in this state. And the national party is on an irreversible course that will drive them off the same cliff. At this point, the only real question question is which of the two parties will self-destruct first?
Scott
OK, cool! I guess I can tell my girlfriend with triple-negative breast cancer that the doctor was wrong when he gave her 6 months to live.
Fucker.
runt
In other words: if you abolish Medicare and Medicaid, more people will die from cancer, which will lower the cost of healthcare. Win!
In other news, I see there’s yet another thing Republicans don’t understand: Venn diagrams.
JPL
@Scott: Hugs to both of you.
Idiots are idiotic.
Peregrinus
@rageahol:
Would’ve made my graduate school admissions a lot easier if I didn’t have to get those, but, on the other hand, I might not have lived to get to graduate school, so there’s that.
Honestly, has Collins entirely missed the awareness campaigns coming out about breast and prostate cancer? I know SGK spends way more money on advertising than it does on researching a cure for cancer, but you’d think that he would be aware that SGK doesn’t think breast cancer has been cured.
Reality: now without Chris Collins.
wenchacha
@gelfling545: Is Roswell Park Cancer Institute in his contested district? That hospital has been there for decades, providing treatment to cancer patients from all over the region. What a total douchebag.
Tonal Crow
@Ruckus:
“GOPers”, pronounced in two syllables. Let’s give “GOP” (one syllable) the hideous connotations it should have. Use it where you ordinarily would use a four-letter word.
mellowjohn
now he tells me.
i just finished 9 weeks of proton radiation for prostate cancer. i could have saved blue cross and me a lot of money!
Ruckus
@JGabriel, Statist Minded Ideologue of the Left:
CFEISA
You left off the complete.
Now it sounds like a French bureaucratic thing.
Or possibly a disease where the brain has shriveled up from being stuck up their own asses for so long.
mellowjohn
@Shalimar: and sorry for your loss. he was a great player to watch and seemed like a genuinely nice guy.
different-church-lady
@quannlace: His point seems to be that thanks to modern medical care people no longer die, therefore we no longer need medical care.
trollhattan
Shorter Republicans: “this is good news for big tobacco.”
Peregrinus
@Scott:
My grandmother received the same prognosis a couple months ago from a benign tumor that’s growing between her stomach and her esophagus. They can’t remove it and she’s going to bleed out, even with regular transfusions.
Fuck cancer. Fuck tumors.
gelfling545
@quannlace: rom what I know of him that would be his point, yes.
gelfling545
@wenchacha: Next district over but in the County he was County Exec of – walking distance from County Hall actually.
Ash Can
@Spaghetti Lee: What was the general reaction to him?
22over7
In honor of the day, here’s the solution to what, exactly, to call people like this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GIBBxM6Hxo
Hope the link works.
Citizen_X
@quannlace:
Happy? Are you kidding me? These assholes are lining up to kick the corpse of Andy fucking Griffith.
They’re not “happy” unless they’re turgid with rage.
Ash Can
@JGabriel, Statist Minded Ideologue of the Left: Right-wing genius Hugh Hewitt is already pushing the meme that Obamacare is killing people.
FlipYrWhig
This sounds like one of those remarks conservatives trot out because they seem clever and contrarian. Like, “maybe the climate is changing, but it’s just cyclical, so there’s no reason to do anything about it. Haha stoopid libs don’t understand the problem.” Here it’s, “ok, maybe medical costs are rising, but it’s just because of people living longer to be sick. Haha stoopid libs don’t understand the problem.”
kay
The attorney general of Ohio, who is a pathetic, groveling slave to the most extreme factions of the GOP, was forced to reveal to the Tea Party in Ohio that the ridiculous state amendment that they passed won’t stop the PPACA, because federal law trumps their poorly-drafted Glenn Beck screed.
He knew this when they passed it, of course, because he is a lawyer, if not a very bright or hardworking one.
Now they’ve turned on him, which is great fun to watch. They’re getting ready to recall him or impeach him or arrest him, or something.
Oh, well. That’s what happens when you lack the spine to stand up to the delusional morons in the Tea Party.
Scott
@JPL: Thank you. And yes they are. Yes they are.
Peregrinus
@Ash Can:
Fantastic, especially considering how much of the law takes effect in 2014. Fucking time, how does it work?
Scott
@Peregrinus: I’ll keep your grandmother in my thoughts.
Cancer is horrible, and politicians need to STFU about it when they don’t know WTF they’re talking about.
HRA
@wenchacha:
The entire county was his district -Erie County Executive and Roswell Park is in Erie County.
He really really must be desperate to say this overly stupid remark.
Villago Delenda Est
@different-church-lady:
Just this.
The stupid of idiots like Collins. It burns.
WereBear
@Scott: I’m so sorry for that. Stupid thoughtless things burn even more when it hits you where you live.
Peregrinus
@HRA:
Right, but he’s not running for Congress in the district that includes Roswell Park. He’s still a fucking moron.
@Scott:
And I’ll keep your girlfriend in mine. Problem is that a good absolute majority of what politicians refuse to STFU about is stuff they don’t know shit about.
In some way, that’s to be expected because you never know what you’ll be asked to comment on. But usually they respond to this with safe platitudes. Collins just fucked up on every possible level here.
gelfling545
I’m not in the district he’s running for thank god, especially since Hochul made a fool of herself over the Holder mess; voting for either would make me ill.
Linnaeus
About five years ago, I had a benign tumor removed from my parotid gland. I had health insurance; as a result, an $8500 surgery (which I could not afford) cost me about $1500 out of pocket (which I could afford, over time).
Now? I don’t have health insurance and if I had that same tumor, it would be growing inside my head and possibly turning malignant – this can happen with the particular kind of tumor I had if it is left untreated. The prognosis for malignant salivary gland tumors is generally poor, so I would have had a good chance of dying if that happened.
So I no longer run that risk because I had access to treatment at the time, the same access that this guy thinks I shouldn’t have. He can go to hell.
Peregrinus
@gelfling545:
Just looked up her statement. Sigh.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@quannlace:
Technically, my father-in-law’s brain tumor didn’t kill him — pneumonia did. So, clearly, he should have skipped the chemotherapy that kept him alive a year and a half longer than the doctors said he had.
(For those who have been following my comments over the last few days, the call came early this morning. G left for Chicago about an hour ago and I’m heading out there on Friday. This sucks, but thanks to modern medicine we got way more time with him than we ever dreamed given the type of tumor it was.)
gnomedad
@donnah:
THIS THIS THIS THIS
And because they’ve trained the rubes to make no distinction between “facts” and “what my tribe says”.
gnomedad
@different-church-lady:
I think you’re right. Nobody could be that stupid. It’s worse than that.
RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist
@different-church-lady:
This is true. Today we can treat diseases that just used to kill people right away. So instead of an immediate funeral you have expensive medical care and a funeral much later from old age.
But people still die too soon from heart disease, strokes and cancer. Every one of those premature deaths is a tragedy. But thanks to modern medicine there are fewer of them.
gelfling545
@Peregrinus: It’s not IN that district but it’s a pretty big deal regionally as well.
Jay in Oregon
@Hypatia’s Momma:
My mother just lost a dear friend to lung cancer a couple of weeks ago.
If I’d been there to hear this asshat flapping his gums about cancer, I don’t know that I would have been able to keep my hands off of him.
Svensker
It’s been said before but I’ll chime in, WTH. Guess my cousin’s 35-year-old wife didn’t die from breast cancer leaving behind three little kids. They must be so happy to have their mom back!
Randy P
@Citizen_X: Just read as much of that as I could stomach. My main takeaway: These idiots still believe in death panels? Reality really doesn’t penetrate their bubble, does it?
Bubblegum Tate
@Argive:
That’s very suspicious–four years ago, my aunt died, and the doctors said it was because of breast cancer. Clearly, this was a Death Panel at work.
What a fuckin’ jaggov Collins is.
sistermoon
@MattF:
Oh,no. I have the misfortune of living in his district. He’s crazy, dishonest and stupid.
Unfortunately, the “Democrat” running against him isn’t a whole lot better. She voted to hold AG Holder in contempt and refuses to attend the convention. The only reason I’ll vote for her is that I want that speaker’s gavel back in Pelosi’s hand where it belongs.
PurpleGirl
A very close friend fought breast cancer for 6 years (surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, and a bone marrow transplant). But it spread to her lungs and brain… that she didn’t survive.
GD the arsehole.
pattonbt
Looks like someone forgot to tell my uncle not to die from prostate cancer, what an idiot.
/snark
What an asshat. Collins that is, not my uncle. Well, actually, my uncle was a bit of an asshat at times, but he was a great uncle.
gelfling545
@sistermoon: What is up with Hochul? I didn’t realize she was such an ass until the Holder thing. Never suspected she had blue dog tendencies.
priscianusjr
He didn’t say we cured cancer. What he said was actually stupider than that. He said that people, meaning cancer patients, aren’t dying as much from it as they used to — which is true. Apparently it did not occur to him that people who don’t die tend to need more medical care than people who do.
Dick Move
I lost a dear friend to breast cancer this year, just weeks short of her 40th birthday. I miss her a lot. Fuck this guy.
AnotherBruce
As much as I am tempted, I hope this waste of skin never gets cancer, because it’s too horrible to wish on anybody.
Origuy
I found out today that a guy in my dance class lost his fight with brain cancer. He was maybe 30. Collins doesn’t have to worry about getting a tumor in the brain he doesn’t have.