How Testicular Cancer Convinced A Former Republican Staffer To Leave His Party

[ProSense]

How Testicular Cancer Convinced A Former Republican Staffer To Leave His Party

By Katie Valentine

Before he could realize the value of affordable health care, one Republican campaign staffer had to experience what it’s like to be without it.

Clint Murphy, now a real estate agent from Savannah, Georgia, who’s been involved with Republican campaigns since the 1990s, was diagnosed with testicular cancer in 2000 when he was 25 years old. Four years and four rounds of chemo treatment later — all of which was covered by insurance — Murphy was in remission. Insurance wasn’t a problem in his subsequent political jobs — he worked on John McCain’s election campaign in 2008 and Karen Handel’s Georgia gubernatorial run in 2010 — but when he quit politics in 2010 and entered real estate, he realized just how difficult obtaining insurance with a pre-existing condition could be.

In an interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Murphy said he thought after 10 years since his cancer diagnosis, the insurance companies might cut him some slack — instead, they found something else to charge him for.

“I have sleep apnea. They treated sleep apnea as a pre-existing condition. I’m going right now with no insurance,” he told the AJC...Murphy had this to say to his Republican friends who oppose Obamacare on Facebook last week: “When you say you’re against it, you’re saying that you don’t want people like me to have health insurance.”

- more -

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/08/18/2485391/testicular-cancer-obamacare-murphy/

Obama's second term: A productive six months.
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[life long demo]

1. My question is why is it only when they themselves experience the problem,

do republicans have a come to the light Epiphany?

[malaise]

3. Because they are like that in every sphere of their lives

Empathy is personal -- community means themselves.

[ProSense]

4. Yup. n/t

[Jamaal510]

13. Selfishness. eom

[CurtEastPoint]

2. Yes, till it happens to THEM, they don't care. And yet this dweeb is supporting Karen Handel...

high school graduate and proponent of getting rid of Obamacare.
Sounds like he needs another dose of reality (not wishing illness, just a smack in the face with the truth.)

[7962]

19. Handel doesnt have a chance, IMO

[Cha]

5. yeah, you wouldn't want to be a gop

if you were sick. That's what Obamacare is for.

Hope he can be an inspiration to others.

thanks PS

[freshwest]

6. Too bad that it took that to spark his imagination and care about others or...

Maybe just himself. He may not have gotten that far yet. Still, interesting that he's going public.

[Downtown Hound]

7. He's still a Republican

in that he's so selfish that he didn't care how many others he condemned to death all the while supporting that fascist party until it affected him. I have a hard time feeling sorry for these people or even glad that they've no longer a part of the dark side.

[pnwmom]

9. And he's supporting a State Senate candidate who wants to defund the ACA.

What a moron.

[tom_kelly]

10. They're a Sorry Lot n/t

[Jamaal510]

14. +1

No telling how he thinks on other issues.

[NickB79]

8. That took balls

Sorry, couldn't resist

[DissidentVoice]

11. The old saying...

...that a "conservative" is a "liberal who got mugged," can easily be turned round to say a "liberal" is a "conservative with no health insurance."

[blkmusclmachine]

12. Self centered.

[Sheepshank]

15. I almost hate myself for thinking this

but should his cancer return, now while he is without insurance, perhaps he can truly understand the family financial ruin problem that hundreds of thousands face daily because they get sick while they do not have insurance.

Of course I don't truly wish that on anyone, but maybe he would lobby a little more fervently if this were the case.

[Marr]

16. Wish I had a dime for every right-winger I've seen make a 180 the very moment

one of their "principles" became personally inconvenient. Then they'll pontificate about how they always felt that way and their position hasn't changed from the beginning.

[7962]

20. I always ask, "Are you ready to start writing those checks for you parents that Medicare writes?"

Then it finally makes a little sense.

[area51]

17. Of course he likes GingrichCare.

It's a republican invention, to force people to buy lightly regulated insurance w/o a public option.

[SHRED]

18. Self-centered is how CONs role

Unless it happens to them it is someone else's problem that they don't give two shits about.