And you’re in the batter’s box. Tonight’s open line.

FOR YOUR READING PLEASURE: A righteously indignant takedown of Mike Huckabee for opposing the health reform that bars insurance companies from denying coverage for pre-existing conditions. Remember, he compared such unfortunate people to burned-down houses, unworthy of coverage. This writer takes it personally.

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My wife has multiple sclerosis, and Mr. Huckabee this weekend compared her to a burned-down house. My wife is a vibrant, active woman who deals with a terrible, terrifying disease that costs upwards of $50,000 a year to treat. Thankfully, my wife was already insured through work when she was diagnosed, but there are many thousands of people out there with MS who have no insurance, or who won’t have insurance when they get diagnosed. If Huckabee has his way, people with pre-existing conditions will be treated as burned-down houses and essentially left to die.

To hear a man who gets treated like a legitimate voice in American politics basically consign my wife and millions of other Americans to suffering and death is to hear nothing more or less than flat-out hate speech from a presidential candidate. What Mike Huckabee suggested is tantamount to eugenics, to the extermination of “weaker” people simply because they are ill.

Some day, this might get attention in Arkansas, where the Floridian Huckabee once lived. I wrote about it this week, too.

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