Bleeding Hearts for ObamaCare: Maybe Crying Will Help Dems' Tanking Support?

Look, no one wants to learn of heartbreak stories of real people struggling with insurance bureaucracies, but trying to make Senator Tom Coburn, who is a family physician, into a heartless abomination of anti-ObamaCare obstructionism isn't going to do the trick. Here's this woman at Coburn's townhall yesterday. She says her insurance company's leaving her husband out in the cold: "We left the nursing home ... and they told us we are on our own":

NewsOK's got the story, "U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn Finds Mixed Views at Forum on Health Care":

More than 500 people attended the noontime event in the Chase Building plaza, and not all agreed with the fiscally conservative Republican.

One woman, a military veteran, asked Coburn, "Morally, how can you deny Americans affordable insurance?”

Coburn was quick to respond.

"One of the reasons it’s not affordable is because government is in the market in the first place,” he said. "Why as a veteran do you have to go to the Veteran Administration (hospital) instead of anywhere else you want?”

After another woman cried as she spoke about a sick relative, Coburn said bigger government won’t lead to health care reform.

"What’s missing from the debate is us as neighbors helping people who need help,” he said.

"The idea that government is a solution to problems is a very inaccurate statement.”

Coburn, who opposes the Democrats’ measure, has introduced a bill that would expand health care by subsidizing private insurance through refundable tax credits and forcing insurers into shared risk pools for those with pre-existing conditions.

Steve Benen, no surprise, has strong words for Coburn:

Coburn's answer represents mindless, reflexive opposition to government, for opposition's sake. It's a worldview that's as shallow as it is destructive ....

I'll never understand the right's obsession with hating the government, but for Coburn to lecture that woman in dire straits about the evils of government intervention in the health care system is callous, cruel, and exactly the kind of twisted thinking policymakers will have to reject to pass real reform.

Benen, the abominable disgrace that he is, doesn't mention that Senator Coburn tells the woman that, "Yeah, we'll help ... the first thing we'll do is see what we can do to help you, individually, through our office." Then Coburn goes on to explain that Americans must reinvigorate our tradition of community caring, focusing on "us as neighbors, helping people that need our help."

We won't get that from radical lefitsts who see every solution to society's problems as strengthening the long arm of the Orwellian state. Benen also might note that ObamaCare's certainly no friend to the woman at the video. Indeed, the logical conclusion is that Zeke Emanuel's cost rationalization regime would likely put the lady's husband out to pasture.

See also, Daily Kos, "This is Your GOP on Healthcare Reform," and Think Progress, "Coburn Tells Weeping Victim of Broken Health Care System That Government Isn't the Solution."

More at Memeorandum.

Related: "Polls Show It's Time for Democrats to Drop Healthcare Reform."