The 2008 Death from Pneumonia of Ron Paul's Uninsured Campaign Manager Kent Snyder
Seth Abramovitch:
Ron Paul's Campaign Manager Died of Pneumonia, Penniless and Uninsured: Ron Paul… faced a pointed line of questioning from Wolf Blitzer regarding the case of an uninsured young man who suddenly found himself in dire need of intensive health care. Should the state pay his bills? Paul responded, "That's what freedom is all about: taking your own risks. This whole idea that you have to take care of everybody—" He never quite finished that point, letting the audience's loud applause finish it for him. So Blitzer pressed on, asking if he meant that "society should just let him die," which earned a chilling round of approving hoots from the crowd. Paul would not concede that much outright, instead responding with a personal anecdote, the upshot being that in such a case, it was up to churches to care for the dying young man. So basically, yeah. He'd let him die.
As it turns out, Paul was not speaking purely in hypotheticals. Back in 2008, Kent Snyder — Paul's former campaign chairman — died of complications from pneumonia. Like the man in Blitzer's example, the 49-year-old Snyder was relatively young and seemingly healthy[1] when the illness struck. He was also uninsured. When he died on June 26, 2008, two weeks after Paul withdrew his first bid for the presidency, his hospital costs amounted to $400,000. The bill was handed to Snyder's surviving mother, who was incapable of paying. Friends launched a website to solicit donations….
After Snyder's death, Paul posted a message to the website for his Campaign for Liberty — a pre-Tea Party organization which served Paul as both presidential marketing tool and platform to promote his non-interventionist, free market ideals. He wrote:
Like so many in our movement, Kent sacrificed much for the cause of liberty. Kent poured every ounce of his being into our fight for freedom. He will always hold a place in my heart and in the hearts of my family.
And that, friends, is what freedom is really all about.
[1]The Kansas City Star quoted his sister at the time as saying that a "a pre-existing condition made the premiums too expensive."
If you are an average American 49 year old, your chances of your catching pneumonia in a year is about 1 in 40 and the chances of your dying from it given that you have caught it is about 1 in 500--it is a serious disease, but one very unlikely to be fatal.
If, however, you have a preexisting condition--like HIV, for example--that makes it impossible for you to afford health insurance, and if stigma because you do not want to beg prevents you from going to the doctor and begging for care, and if your immune system is badly compromised, and if your lack of health insurance leads you to report to the emergency room late--well, then you are likely to die of your pneumonia.
I don't know that Kent Snyder was HIV+.
I don't know that he did not go to the doctor regularly because he did not want to beg for things he could not pay for.
I don't know that the community rating and the exchanges in ObamaCare that would have made insurance affordable for him would have made a difference and led him to seek earlier and better medical attention, and thus would have kept him from dying of pneumonia on June 26, 2008…
But if I were a betting man, that is the way I would bet.
