Conservatives Attack 11-Year-Old Over Healthcare

Michelle Malkin, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck spent the day using their various platforms to criticized Marcelas Owens, a fifth grader from Seattle, who appeared in a March 11 press conference with Senate Democrats to tell the story of his mother Tiffany Owens, who died of pulmonary hypertension at age 27 in 2007.

According the the New York Times, Owens lost her health insurance because she could no longer work at her job as an assistant manager at a Jack in the Box.

According to MediaMatters, CNN reports that Marcelas said at the event, “I came out here for health care, I got involved because my mom was a health care activist, she testified and participated in rallies. She wanted people to have health care and not wait till management level to be offered health care.”

And how do Malkin, Limbaugh and Beck respond to this child who was proud of his mother for working for health care reform?

Rush Limbaugh: “Your mom would have still died, because Obamacare doesn’t kick in until 2014.”

Michelle Malkin: “One of President Obama’s youngest lobbyists…”

Glenn Beck: “Where was grandma?”

I supposed you could argue that Marcelas’ family shouldn’t have put him in the national spotlight, but it’s clear he is a proud son who wants to honor his mother’s memory by fightin for her cause. If nothing else, that should be respected. So, by all means, present the facts–it’s fair game to point out that HCAN funded the Owens’ trip to Washington, but is it too much to ask to keep children and grandmas out of our political battles?

You can read the Glenn Beck transcript on the Fox News site. Beck also thinks we should be wary of the following suspicious phrases:

Social justice

Shared community

Collective responsibility

Truly democratic society

Ironic isn’t it? Conservatives spent all of last summer arguing that people should rely on their communities and neighbors for help with health care difficulties, almost as if they had a collective responsibility to take care of each other in this trule democratic society.

Nah.

Photo courtesy of New York Times and Alex Wong/Getty Images

quick poll

vote now!

Loading poll...

no!
leaning no
leaning yes
yes!

no!
leaning no
leaning yes
yes!

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

Gypsy W.

10:06AM PDT on May 23, 2010

This is so wrong, he's just a kid, and probably a pretty traumatized one at that..why are people so cruel and ignorant?

send a green star

Iolani T.

1:10PM PDT on May 2, 2010

This is something that you have to live to understand. To be the person who is ill or the family watching someone die because they don't have money for medical care is not something to be debated. Shame of those of you who do. I ask myself how many people making decisions have lived what is really going on. Unless you have been there, lived it for more than 5 minutes and had it burned into your memory you better not speak for everyone. We will never live in Utopia but we can certainly come closer than we are now by showing compassion to others. There is nothing weak about showing love and compassion and congress should know, as they hopefully do now, what goes around comes around. Republicans, if we are supposed to get what we payed for I for one want my money back.

Bess m.

7:09AM PDT on May 2, 2010

OMG!! WHAT ASSHOLES!!!!!!!

Judith S.

7:08AM PDT on Apr 20, 2010

Vivian, perhaps she would have lived if she had had preventive care early on in the illness, rather than having to wait until she was so far along in her illness that she had to go to an emergency room and be hospitalized because emergency rooms (supposedly) are not able to turn anyone away. She probably did not go back to the hospital because she realized at that point it was useless and she was going to die anyway so why put her family through the nightmare of the enormous bills and collection calls that were inevitable if she were hospitalized.

Vivian E.

3:14PM PDT on Apr 19, 2010

I agree with Glen Beck on this one. Medicare/Medicaid
should have been available. There should be a more stream-
lined way to get help through the programs we have.
Also, if she died because she was not treated in a hospital,
then the hospital needs to be investigated. It is illegal for a
hospital to refuse the treat anyone because they cannot pay.
However, reading her story, she seems to have been given the
proper care in her 8 day hospital stay.
I don't believe anyone is to blame for her death.
I believe that the child is being exploited and it is wrong to let
that child believe that his mother could have lived with insurance.
It may be more of an education issue, she should have been
aware that the hospital had to treat her. Perhaps she could
have been saved if she had gone to the hospital sooner. We
will never know.

Kory M.

10:24AM PDT on Apr 15, 2010

Beck, Limbaugh, O'really, Savage, Malkin; these Biomasses are sick and need Psychological help. It is easy to spew Hatred and racism. there is NOTHING good or noble about the sad little People. Histroy will remember them as People who made a Living in the most discusting way possible.

Shannon G.

7:19AM PDT on Apr 15, 2010

Anthony, I am fiscally conservative and have not made my money on the backs of other people. To say that anyone who is wealthy has not "Dug a Ditch" is simply untrue and is doing the very thing that you accuse all conservatives of which is blameing failure on laziness. Many people have built their wealth by good old fashioned hard work and desearve credit for being a functioning, tax paying, charity giving, and engaged member of society. FYI the people that you look to to save those in need who are not labeled conservative are WEALTHY and have made their money off the backs of the poor. They do this by dumbing down America to what is really going on.

6:55AM PDT on Apr 15, 2010

Conservatives, are for "haves, not for the "not haves", they all talk a good game, about life and personal responsibility, and I for one, applaud them, at least on the matter of self respect, and reliance, but too many think that what they got in life is what "they" earned, and here, I depart from their script, the trouble is, they are the "nasty party" as Theresa May says in England

The very people who think that all failure in life is down to an individual being lazy, or dishonest, or simply incompetent, and from life experience, I know this to be untrue.

They all seem to think ,they have the answer, of why we failed, and are only too willing to lecture us on this, and other points, for their cause.

Most simply do not accept that the way in which they made money, is two fold, firstly they had others working for them, ( no one ever gets rich digging their own ditch, not one millionaire, ever made his fortune from his own work, alone, but by exploiting others, and paying them less than they make an hour, for him.

They all say, we have a choice, but the lower down the scale you are, the less your options, are, and they all believe they pay our wages, while the facts are, that the work we do for them, pays our wages, and gives them their profit, ever heard a single one, say thank you ?),

Secondly, they get their money working for them, as well, ( usually at the expense of the little people, yet again, tax cuts/evasion, accountants, lawyers, need I go on ?).