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One recent Hillary line that sure works for me is the one about how it's no more OK to discriminate against sick people than it is to discriminate on the basis of race or ethnicity. For the last two years, my friend Lisa Girion of the Los Angeles Times has been documenting how insurance companies currently get away with murder in this regard, canceling policies as soon as customers file a claim by hoking up evidence of some pre-existing condition. As it turns out, there is a word for this: recission. And secret bonuses for the most prolific recissors! On Saturday, Lisa finally had some good news to report: One of California's largest for-profit insurers, Health Net Inc., has reversed course and stopped canceling sick policyholders. But what caused the switch? On Friday, the judge in a case that would have been perfect for John Edwards ordered Health Net to pay more than $9 million to a breast cancer patient it had dropped—wait for it—in the middle of her chemotherapy. Don't you wonder how many millions more they'll have to spend in pink PR, trying to get across how much they really do care about us? This is why God made trial lawyers—to convince companies it is cheaper to do the right thing the first time.
I also see where the formerly admirable Ralph Nader claims he is being discriminated against; the New York Times reports that he has even compared the terrible marginalization suffered by independent candidates to bias against blacks in the Jim Crow South: "One is based on race," he said, "and the other is based on status.'' Exactly! And don't we have a right to hold his status as a world-class irritant against him? I say yes—and wonder if he doesn't have more safety concerns than Obama. Wouldn't you think Nader would get more invitations to step into the alley than he'd get votes at this point? Whenever I get into one of my global warming funks, his is the face I see.
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