That's the ER healthcare program we have today. If you are on the brink of death, we will help each other through our government. But if not, and you are going to live two more days, then you can have healthcare tomorrow, and don't say we never gave you anything....oh, right, you won't be complaining in three days!

And, as we all know, that one women is the only person in America who has a "desperate need" for health care.

Right.

"The way I responded, that was a constituent in desperate need. I was dealing with it in its immediacy, as if she was asking me for advice right here and now."

The woman framed the question in the context of the health care reform debate and wanted to know what his policy recommendation would be to handle similar, real life situations. He wasn't handing out constituent advice. He was demonstrating the poverty of his thinking.

I am having a hard time understanding exactly what it is Cantor is saying here. If he was giving "immediate" advice, what he said was not helpful in that context at all, since he did not cite any program or charity that might be able to help. His advice was so generic it was useless. He needs to be asked, specifically, which charity or government program could solve the problem. If he can't name one, what chance does a regular person have?

Sharp as a fuckin cue ball, this guy.

The "immediacy" is that he didn't have anything to tell her and he knew that he would NOT have anything to offer her or any other American in similar plight and that it was his intention NEVER to have anything to offer her or anyone else.

I don't know what the American Cancer Society has to say, but they can only talk about programs that -do- exist, not those that -should- exist.

I was astounded by Cantor's closing comment, that no one in need of care should be without "an option" or means of receiving care. What a very liberal democrat thing to say! I can only assume that he believes those options already exist (hence there's no need for a socialist public option). Surely, the woman described in the example would not qualify for medicaid -- at least not until she exhausted whatever savings she managed to squirrel away while employed and sold her house. Does he believe that seeking charity from ... what, your local church? or from the hospital's "indigent care fund" are acceptable "options"? How can he sleep at night?

Hypocrite, thy name is Cantor.

"None of us likes the status quo?" Since when? I thought Cantor and the GOP thinks things are just fine except for some fiddling to help the ins and drug cos make more money.

"none of us like the status quo" -

Does this mean that "best health care in the WORLD, baby!" is no longer operative?

The simple truth is, Cantor and his ilk, owned by the conservative movement, are really saying, "sorry, your relative must die because we do not believe that this nation is a community."

Cantor, the GOP and their conservative masters never have the guts to publicly state their true beliefs that if you get sick and you are poor, or unfortunate enough to be temporarily unemployed, and your insurance has lapsed, and you don't have the money to buy insurancy, you should die.

That is what they are really saying.

How compassionate of Cantor to respond to this woman's immediate concern by essentially advising her relative to become a beggar and depend on government programs (aka socialized medicine) that he doesn't support in the first place. He likely believes himself to be a merciful person. This guy would kick a needy Samaritan and then complain that he had dirtied his shoe.

Who was the Soviet prisoner who wrote that no-one who is warm can really understand what it feels like to be cold.