I came across this statement by a Tea-bagger and it seemed worth quoting because it sums up everything in a small nutshell (Pun-intended).
The context is that Congressional Republican leaders are having trouble with the newly elected Tea-baggers. They can all agree on "repeal Obamacare." But, what should they replace it with? Senior Republican leaders want to simultaneously introduce a new bill which both repeals the HCR Act AND introduces a NEW bill to replace it (presumably with glib sounding crap) But, newly elected Tea-baggers are balking at replacing it with anything! Check out the rationale:
Remember that some portions of the bill (blocking insurers from denying coverage for "Pre-existing conditions" for instance) are quite popular. Other parts (like the mandate) are quite UN-popular. So, Republican leaders want to come up with a strategy which makes sense: repeal the unpopular parts and then substitute a NEW bill (with tax cuts for business or something they can claim will increase coverge -- but which will be essentially useless window dressing).
They don't want to take the public relations hit for just repealing the whole thing and replacing it with NOTHING! But, Tea-baggers are enraged at this. They insist on having NOTHING! And the article in Politico pointing this out? Michelle Bachman thinks: "We need to make that argument why free-market healthcare is a good thing."
In short, we need to first repeal HCR and then have a "debate" about why we should just accept that everybody doesn't get health care (in fact fewer and fewer people get it). This is free market fetishism run wild of course, But take a look at the comments in response!
Here's the comments from Tea-baggers in response:
Yeah Eric Cantor. REPEAL THE ENTIRE OBAMANATION!
The people out there who think healthcare is a right make me sick.
Americans didn't have health insurance during the beginning of America - John Adams' daughter had breast cancer and had her breast removed the old fashioned way - WITH A KNIFE AND WITHOUT PAINKILLERS!
Soldiers during the Civil War suffered horribly because there was no such thing as morphine.
Pioneers set out across America to face challenges none of us could have imagined and guess what - America still stands because of what they did. Some people starved to death and ate their dead relatives because there was no food.
You people out there who think you deserve to be taken care of should be ashamed of yourselves. You have turned into a bunch of pathetic losers.
So we should go back to the Civil War era when people suffered and starved to death and "ate their dead relatives because there was no food", when people had body parts amputated WITHOUT anesthetic, because -- well, I'm not sure why, except that's the MANLY thing to do?
Of course you can bet John Adams would have insisted on anesthetic for his wife IF IT EXISTED!
It's all too easy to ridicule this guy as a raving lunatic. But, it's more instructive to UNDERSTAND him, because there are MILLIONS of these raving people running around.
And their underlying premise is that we should all live in a state of BRUTE NATURE and all attempts to create a humane society where people DON'T have to suffer needlessly and where everybody has at least a minimum standard of human dignity DEEPLY OFFENDS THIS TEA-BAGGER!
He thinks we should all be "on our own." If you can't afford health care, you should just die so he won't have to pay 1 penny in tax dollars to help you. Society at large has NO role in helping mitigate the suffering of life or even preventing needless death!
(Of course being a tea-bagger he'll scream about his medicare and medicaid when HE needs it -- it's only OTHER people who are undeserving).
This shows how we need to make the MORAL dimension the key focus. Because we DON'T all agree in this country that we should make life tolerable for everybody, and that government as the agent of our collective will ought to be the agent to do that.
But, you can bet a strong majority of people agree with US and not with HIM.
In every other advanced industrialized country this is not an issue. But, here in America it still is.
And we cannot prevail unless we make THIS MORAL argument the central focus and then have an up or down vote on it: "Tea-baggers believe you should just suffer in silence. We think Government should guarantee health care for everybody!" You decide. Once and for all -- just like Europe and Asia have already done.